In an anticlimactic end to one of the hottest legal disputes concerning the PR industry, Nike Inc last week agreed to pay $1.5 million to a workers rights group to settle the
commercial free speech case that it took to the Supreme Court.
In a joint statement, Nike and plaintiff Mark Kasky said they "mutually agreed that investments designed to strengthen workplace monitoring and factory programs are more
desirable than prolonged litigation."
Nike's payment will go to the Washington, D.C.-based Fair Labor Association (FLA) for worker development programs focused on education. Patrick Coughlin, attorney for Kasky,
said the settlement would enable "Nike to further develop its corporate responsibility efforts and allow interested consumers to measure the performance of Nike and other
companies through public reporting." But what's left unresolved in the settlement--key to all communicators--is whether Nike lied concerning statements about its overseas labor
practices and, if it did, whether the statements qualified as free speech under the First Amendment. (See PR NEWS, July 14, 2003).
PRSA president-CEO Reed Bolton Byrum, APR, said in a statement the association is "extremely disappointed that this litigation did little to clarify constitutional protections
for free expression in institutional communications." Vada Manager, director of global issues management for Nike, tells PR NEWS there's a strong possibility the issue "will again
rear its head" in the Courts.