A Chicago federal district court judge has signed off on a joint stipulation and order that imposes “spoliation sanctions” on Sinclair Broadcast Group for its failure to preserve “relevant electronically stored information.”
This will see the arm of the company led by President/CEO Chris Ripley pay thousands of dollars to a group of plaintiffs who sued Sinclair and several of its broadcast TV peers in October 2018 on antitrust claims tied to alleged price fixing for advertising.
The plaintiff payment from Sinclair totals $175,000, and follows a November 2025 decision by the Illinois Northern District Court to sanction Sinclair failing to retain such electronically stored information as text messages — an action that prevented plaintiffs’ attorneys from conducting full discovery in its case.
The matter within the broadcast TV ad price-fixing case is focused on Sinclair Broadcast Group’s duty to preserve relevant electronically stored information (ESI) in the antitrust lawsuit. The company failed to do so by not keeping text messages from work-issued cell phones.
U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Kendall agreed with plaintiff’s attorneys that the erasure of the text messages resulted in “spoliated evidence.”
The plaintiffs are comprised of One Source Heating & Cooling, ThoughtWorx Inc. (doing business as Minnesota-based ad shop MCM Services Group), Minneapolis-based creative shop Hunt Adkins and Cleveland-area retailer Fish Furniture.
This is germane to the current Sinclair legal fight, as the cases involving a host of other broadcast TV licensees were subsequently transferred and consolidated before the Illinois Northern District Court in October 2018, with Megan Jones of Hausfeld LLP appointed Interim Lead Counsel.
In May 2023, “extensive negotiations” led CBS News & Stations parent Paramount Global; FOX Corporation; and Cox Media Group to each come to terms with settlement agreements that resolved advertising price-fixing claims against the three television station ownership groups. Other companies entangled in the case involve Nexstar Media Group, Griffin Communications, The E.W. Scripps Co., and TEGNA.
Plaintiffs argued that the broadcast TV station owners engaged in “a unitary scheme” to raise the prices of broadcast television spot advertisements to “supra-competitive levels” by agreeing to fix prices and exchange competitively sensitive information, including pacing data. This is a violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act and various state unfair competition laws.
