According to media reports, the Coca-Cola Co. has filed a criminal complaint against executives of French food and drink maker Danone, as well as its PR firm Euro RSCG. In this complaint, the company accuses them of orchestrating a smear campaign against Coke’s Dasani water brand in the Argentinian market – a violation of the country’s Unfair Trade Practices statute.

Allegedly, soon after Coca-Cola launched Dasani in Argentina in late 2005, the bottled water has been smeared as “bottled tap water” and “cancer water” on the Internet. It is Coke’s position that there is strong evidence linking Danone and Euro RSCG to the two-year long campaign.

And, as the Internet has “no borders”, the campaign appears to have spread to other Spanish-speaking Latin American countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador. Coca-Cola said that this has negatively impacted their business.

Commentary: Want to know a few interesting facts?

Interesting fact #1 – - While, theoretically, the penalties could be huge (up to $10,000 per consumer), they won’t be. This is in part because under Argentine law, any fines/penalties/damages in this case would not be paid to Coca-Cola but instead to the Argentine state treasury. Coca-Cola probably isn’t looking for big fines so much as to make a statement, offset some bad publicity, and to have the practice stopped.

Interesting fact #2: Unfortunately, the history of Dasani is not crystal clean, which will cloud up Coca-Cola’s case. In fact, back in March 2004 the company had to recall it from the shelves in the UK due to excessive levels of cancer-causing bromate being present in the bottled water.

Interesting fact #3 – - Evian is a huge bottle water brand/supplier (owned by Danone). Guess who the U.S. distributor is? Answer: Coca-Cola.