Posted by Kevin Greutert
on 12/24/2006, 7:15 pm
71.129.108.203
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Beverage giant Coca-Cola, Inc (KO.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's No. 1 soft drink company, on Friday announced the settlement of a lawsuit brought by the parents of the young boy brutally mauled by a polar bear last week. While admitting no culpability, Coke will pay the bereaved parents an undisclosed sum believed to be in the tens of millions.
News of the settlement came shortly before Coke Chief Executive Neville Isdell was scheduled to address financial analysts and investors in New York. Investors had hoped that the issue would be resolved before the Christmas holidays, to avoid further negative publicity.
In a terse but emotional press release, Mr. Isdell announced that Coca-Cola will immediately cease running all advertisements that depict polar bears as “affectionate, peaceful, carbonated-beverage loving entities.”
In a follow-up release, Coke spokesperson Richard Horton said that though it should have been obvious to even the youngest of viewers that their commercials were intended to exist in a “fantasy world of peace and harmony,” the entire managerial staff of Coca-Cola, Inc. would like to express their extreme remorse. The six year old, whose name has been withheld on request of his parents, was attacked last Wednesday after climbing into the Polar Adventures exhibit of the Maryland Zoo, where he tried to pour his drink into the mouth of Alaska, a pregnant bear who was secluded in her den.
Attempts to re-attach the boy’s arms were unsuccessful, and he later died under anaesthesia at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Alaska and her unborn cub will be put down early in the new year.
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