The legal sparring between exporter CraftCanTravel LLC (CCT) and Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B) continues.
CraftCanTravel sued A-B and Tilray Brands in federal court last year, alleging that the brewers infringed upon its exclusive rights to export the former Craft Brew Alliance (CBA) portfolio of brands, including Kona Brewing, “to most of the world.” Tilray, which acquired some of the brands involved in 2023, was dropped from the lawsuit in August 2024.
The latest issues flared up last week when an attorney for CCT alleged in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Cathy Seibel that “CBA is actively selling Kona in CCT’s exclusive territory, including to CCT’s customers at prices that undercut CCT.” Although the lawsuit refers to CBA throughout, those references should be understood to mean A-B, which acquired the craft platform in total in 2020.
“CBA’s strategy to kill CCT ‘by a thousand cuts’ continues unabated,” attorney Jeffrey Carton wrote, adding that the company learned of CBA selling Kona to CCT customers in Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico, each exclusive CCT territories.
In a response letter to Seibel, an attorney for A-B and CBA, James F. Bennett, described the issues as “an error,” the sales as “small and isolated” and argued “there is no cause for the court’s involvement,” which he stated would have been resolved had CCT contacted the company.
CCT attorney Carton pointed to a May 8, 2024, letter from Guam-based Ambros Inc., a distributor that CCT has a decade-plus relationship with to supply Kona in the U.S. territories. In the letter, Ambros said it was able to source Kona Big Wave and Longboard directly from A-B with a “landed cost difference per case is about $5.50.” Ambros sought a price match from CCT, adding the “price difference is a bit too much to ignore.”
Additionally, documentation provided by Ambros to CCT showed confirmation of the Kona order and pricing that was “much lower than CCT’s pricing and lower than the prices CBA charges CCT.”
Carton argued that CCT should not have to compete with A-B and CBA in its exclusive territory and “cannot compete when CBA/A-B is undercutting CCT’s pricing structure with CCT’s customers and, adding insult to injury, unilaterally increasing the prices charged to CCT.”
“Simply put, CBA is destroying CCT’s reputation and goodwill with its customer in its exclusive territory,” he wrote.
CCT alleged that it also discovered A-B was selling Kona in another of its territories, Puerto Rico, to one of its customers, Ballester Hermanos.
“It is difficult to imagine a more brazen breach of the distribution agreement,” Carton wrote, adding that CCT is seeking “targeted discovery to determine if that misconduct has been more widespread, and preliminary injunctive relief to prevent it from continuing.”
Bennett argued the request for injunctive relief be denied so CBA has an opportunity to cure the issue. He added that the company is already taking steps to prevent future errant sales of Kona by educating its teams and directing distributors in those territories to CCT.
Bennett wrote that CBA is determining whether other direct sales took place in CCT territories and will pay CCT “lost margins” for orders it directly fulfilled. He characterized the direct sales as “small and isolated,” including 812 case equivalents (CEs) sold directly to Ambros in 2024 and 2025.
An internal investigation by CBA determined Ambros had contacted A-B’s military sales business unit in early 2025 about pricing information for Kona. A-B’s military unit “was not aware of CBA’s relationship with CCT,” and made the sales. Once informed of the CCT relationship, sales were stopped, he added.
Bennett noted CBA has delivered 18,425 CEs to CCT in those territories in that same period. He pegged the “mistaken sales” at 0.2% of CCT’s sales total in forecasted volumes for the last two years.
A-B also made a direct sale in 2023 of 1,176 CEs and “limited isolated sales to Ambros or its subsidiaries from 2021-2023.” The company found no records of direct sales to Ballester Hermanos over the last two years, Bennett added.