001025 Burger King “Victory” In Boycott DisputeOctober 8, 2000Miami, FL - Burger King said it scored a victory in a New York state court in a dispute with a black Burger King restaurant owner at the center of a threatened boycott against the world's No. 2 fast food chain. A New York Supreme Court judge ordered Detroit entrepreneur La-Van Hawkins and two of his companies to pay $8.4 million in loans to Franchise Acceptance Corp., an affiliate of Burger King, the chain said. The ruling was made last week. A spokeswoman for Miami-based Burger King, a unit of Diageo Plc of Britain, said the ruling could be challenged by Hawkins. It arose from a suit by the fast food chain seeking to recover loans made to Hawkins under 21 promissory notes. Hawkins, a well-known figure in Detroit's inner city neighbourhoods, operates more than two dozen Burger King outlets, and has enlisted the support of black activists such as Rev. Al Sharpton. Hawkins also operates Pizza Hut restaurants. A spokeswoman for Hawkins, who filed a $1.9 billion lawsuit against Burger King in April, was not immediately available to comment on the New York ruling. He claimed Burger King failed to live up to a high-profile, 1996 agreement announced at the White House to help Hawkins open as many as 225 restaurants in America's inner-city neighbourhoods. Burger King has filed a countersuit, saying the deal covered only 25 restaurants and left a door open to others. The chain argued that Hawkins failed to pay rents, royalties and advertising fees of $8 million or more. It also asks Hawkins to drop the Burger King name from his restaurants. The New York ruling involved a third lawsuit. Sharpton and other activists last month said they were weighing a boycott against Burger King, claiming the operator of 7,830 restaurants in the United States did not do sufficient business with black-owned companies. A spokeswoman for Sharpton was not immediately available.
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