Court Dismisses Antitrust Suit AgainstDiebold

SAN FRANCISCO - (08/04/05) -- A federal court here has dismissed asuit brought by the nation's ATM servicers against Diebold Inc.,claiming the ATM maker controlled the market for ATM upgrades,particularly with respect to the Triple DES security standards. Therequest for dismissal was filed by the Financial and SecurityProducts Association, which represents more than 350 ATMmaintenance companies around the country. The dismissal comes threeweeks after the court denied a request by the ATM servicers requestto block a Diebold policy on Triple DES upgrades as unfair andanticompetitive. In denying the request for a preliminaryinjunction, the court ruled that the ATM servicers failed to provethat the limited market for Triple DES upgrades qualified as amarket under the Sherman Antitrust Act. Furthermore, the courtruled that Diebold was no longer preventing the servicers fromperforming the ATM upgrades, but allowing them to do so afterpaying a licensing fee. As many as half the 250,000 ATMs in theU.S.--all of which must be upgraded to Triple DES by year-end--havebeen manufactured by Diebold.