Letitia James sues Intermountain for buying competitor and shutting it down to reduce competition; Greek Peak Mountain owner to pay $195k for illegal noncompete agreements<\/p>\n\n\n\n
New York Attorney General Letitia James took two actions to stop unlawful and monopolistic business practices by ski resort operators in Central New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
James is suing Intermountain Management (Intermountain) for buying its main competitor, Toggenburg Mountain, then shutting it down to direct skiers to its own ski mountains<\/a>. In addition, James ended an illegal agreement between the owner of Greek Peak Mountain (Greek Peak), John H. Meier, and Intermountain that prohibited Meier from competing with Intermountain or hiring any of its employees. As a result of a settlement with the Office of the Attorney General<\/a>, Meier is required to pay $195,000 to the state and will cooperate with the litigation against Intermountain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIntermountain tried to freeze out competitors to increase its profits and dominate the region\u2019s ski market,\u201d James said. \u201cToday we are taking action to end these illegal arrangements and protect workers, skiers, and consumers. Monopolies are not a game. They harm consumers, drive up prices and limit workers\u2019 opportunities. Intermountain\u2019s greedy behavior left skiers out in the cold so they could line their own pockets and be on top of the ski market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIllegal and unfair practices by businesses big and small will not be tolerated by my office.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In August 2021, Meier, operator of Greek Peak Mountain, sold Toggenburg Mountain \u2013 a mainstay for Syracuse-area skiers and snowboarders \u2013 to its main competitor, Intermountain. Intermountain owns and operates the only other two ski resorts in the Syracuse area, Labrador and Song Mountains. The OAG lawsuit alleges that Intermountain only purchased Toggenburg to shut out competition, which was made clear when it immediately closed Toggenburg and announced that Toggenburg would not reopen for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of continuing to operate Toggenburg, Intermountain suggested its customers drive to Labrador or Song Mountain, so that Intermountain could capture the additional sales. Intermountain also publicly announced that it would insert a deed restriction barring future buyers from using Toggenburg as a ski resort ever again, thereby asserting itself as the only ski operator in the Syracuse area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lawsuit alleges that Intermountain partners Peter Harris and Richard Sykes collaborated on the anticompetitive scheme to buy Toggenburg and establish their monopoly for years, approaching Meier repeatedly, inviting him to drinks at private social clubs, meals at local restaurants and even staging a \u201cfaux buy\u201d where they approached Meier through a third party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Meier finally agreed to sell, Intermountain\u2019s owners required him to agree that he would not compete with any of the Intermountain ski resorts, including Labrador and Song Mountains, for five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The non-compete agreement prohibited Meier from hiring any of Intermountain\u2019s employees, from janitorial staff to ski lift operators, in what is known as a \u201cno-poach\u201d provision. No-poach agreements and provisions reduce competition for employees and disrupt normal wage-setting mechanisms, harming workers. The OAG\u2019s investigation did not identify any reason for the no-poach provision and determined that its inclusion was unlawful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the agreement with Intermountain, Meier had entered into similar agreements with his former partner, Marc Stemerman, and E. James Hickey. The agreement with Stemerman contained a no-poach provision, and the agreement with Hickey had a geographic restriction that barred Hickey from competing within a 70-mile radius around Toggenburg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, these illegal agreements harmed workers\u2019 mobility and career choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The OAG ended these illegal agreements, and Meier will pay $195,000 to the state, which is the amount he was paid by Intermountain for the agreement. Meier is also required to cooperate with OAG\u2019s litigation against Intermountain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As part of the lawsuit against Intermountain, James is seeking to require Intermountain to sell one of its resorts and rescind its illegal non-compete agreement. In addition, James is seeking monetary relief for the ill-gotten gains from Toggenburg customers forced to move to Intermountain and civil penalties for Intermountain\u2019s unfair and illegal business practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This matter and litigation are being handled by Assistant Attorneys General Benjamin J. Cole and Tal M. Elmatad of the Antitrust Bureau under the supervision of Deputy Bureau Chief Amy McFarlane and Bureau Chief Elinor Hoffmann. The Antitrust Bureau is a part of the Division for Economic Justice, which is led by Chief Deputy Attorney General Chris D\u2019Angelo and overseen by First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Letitia James sues Intermountain for buying competitor and shutting it down to reduce competition; Greek Peak Mountain owner to pay $195k for illegal noncompete agreements New York Attorney General Letitia James took two actions to stop unlawful and monopolistic business practices by ski resort operators in Central New York. James is suing Intermountain Management (Intermountain) for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[32,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-120974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-top-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Attorney-General-Letitia-James.jpg?fit=2832%2C4256&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-vtc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/98849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}