Swatch sues Bloomberg over recorded analyst call

Watchmaker Swatch Group has sued Bloomberg LP, accusing the news service of secretly recording a conference call with securities analysts and providing a transcript to clients.

Jonathan Stempel of Reuters writes, “In a copyright infringement lawsuit, the Swiss company said Bloomberg had improperly recorded a February 8 earnings call while it was in progress, and provided a transcript that day to its online subscribers.

“Swatch said Bloomberg had not been invited or authorized to participate in the call. The Swiss company also said it had instructed listeners at the beginning of the call not to record it for publication or broadcast.

“Bloomberg spokeswoman Pam Snook said in an email that the privately held company’s policy was to not discuss litigation.

“Swatch said that in response to Swatch’s demand that it disable access to the transcript, Bloomberg admitted on February 10 to recording the call without permission but refused to disable online access to or remove the transcript from its website.”

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