Drinks.Com sues WineDirect alleging substandard shipping service; WD countersues

Drinks Holdings Inc. (DHI) — best known for its Drinks.Com direct wine sales — has sued ecommerce and fulfillment company, WineDirect (WD) in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleging breach of contract, fraud, misrepresentation, and unfair competition.

The suit was brought by DHI and its allied company, Hemispheres against WD and its Chief Executive Officer Joseph Waechter.

WineDirect and Waechter deny the allegations, and have filed a counterclaim against DHI, Hemispheres and Gary Cooperman, who is DHI’s Chief Financial Officer.

DHI’s complaint alleges WD misrepresented its ability to handle all of DHI’s shipping business, which resulted in chronic shipment delays including a disastrous 2016 holiday season. WD’s counterclaim, filed in amended form on April 16, charged that all the shipping issues resulted from DHI’s inability to provide accurate estimates of upcoming shipments and that they had too many inserts to go into the shipping boxes.

WD’s counterclaim also alleges illegal shipments and issues with product bailments.

DHI has not yet filed a response to WD’s counterclaim. However, DHI's attorney, David Shack said in an email to Wine Industry Insight that:

"It is unfortunate that we have had to resort to litigation to resolve our dispute with WineDirect, but we are 100% confident that our claims will be fairly adjudicated and that we will be awarded the full amount of our damages from WineDirect’s service failures. We also deny all allegations of wrongful or illegal conduct.”

Wine Industry Insight also reached out to WineDirect for comment, but they failed to respond.

According to LA Superior Court documents, the two companies are next due in court on June 20 for a case management conference at the Santa Monica courthouse.

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The full text of the following sections is available to premium subscribers of Wine Executive News.

DHI says trouble with WineDirect rooted in expansion, increasing sales
DHI contends that WineDirect did not grow its resources to handle DHI growth
DHI gives WineDirect early warning of new deals and greater volume in 2017-18
DHI alleges faulty WD equipment, poor management and unreliable employees caused consistent delivery failures
WD blames chronic problems on DHI’s inconsistent forecasts, numerous inserts
DHI: Holiday catastrophe of 2016 caused by WD service failure
WineDirect contends faulty DHI forecasts caused 2016 holiday catastrophe
WineDirect Counterclaim alleges shipment irregularities
Wine bailment issues also asserted by WD

Full court documents for premium subscribers

Drinks Holdings Complaint
WineDirect Amended Counter-Complaint

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The remainder of this article is available to Wine Executive News premium subscribers who may log-in here:

Also in this issue for premium subscribers:

DHI says trouble with WineDirect rooted in expansion, increasing sales

DHI contends that WineDirect did not grow its resources to handle DHI growth

DHI gives WineDirect early warning of new deals and greater volume in 2017-18

DHI alleges faulty WD equipment, poor management and unreliable employees caused consistent delivery failures

WD blames chronic problems on DHI’s inconsistent forecasts, numerous inserts

DHI: Holiday catastrophe of 2016 caused by WD service failure

WineDirect contends faulty DHI forecasts caused 2016 holiday catastrophe

WineDirect Counterclaim alleges shipment irregularities

Wine bailment issues also asserted by WD

Full court documents for premium subscribers

Not a Wine Executive News subscriber?

The remainder of this 1,958-word article is available to Wine Executive News Premium Subscribers.

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