Date:         Tue, 2 Sep 1997 20:31:22 +0000
From:         Christopher Schneider <christopher.schneider@GBHAP.COM>
Subject:      Release sent out Aug 28

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- August 28, 1997           Contact: Frances Edwards
                                                                212/512-5496

Gordon and Breach Science Publishers
To Appeal Decision By U.S. District Court

A decision has been rendered (8/26/97) by the United States District
Court:  Southern District of New York in the matter of Gordon and Breach
Science Publishers v. The American Institute of Physics and The American
Physical Society (AIP/APS). Gordon and Breach (G&B) is appealing this
decision, denying its application for an injunction prohibiting AIP/APS
from promoting their journals as being more cost-effective based on Henry
H. Barschall's methodology.

The issue at hand was the publishing and use of a survey by Barschall that
compared prices of science journals, and which ranked commercially
published journals (as opposed to non-profit society journals) at the
bottom of a purportedly unbiased survey.

The Court acknowledged that Gordon and Breach presented evidence that
there are superior procedures for determining a journal's
cost-effectiveness.  However, it ruled that Barschall had accurately
calculated the components of his ratio and that his test was therefore
reliable. In so doing, the Court believed that G&B did not meet the
standard for obtaining an injunction. Yet in a parallel case in France,
the court there ruled in G&B's favor, stating 'the defendants, by
publishing in their journals articles which, in scientific guise, have as
their goal the denigration of competing journals by presenting them as
more expensive and less influential than those published by themselves,
committed acts of unfair competition by illegal comparative advertising,
for which they must make reparation." That ruling has been appealed by
AIP/APS.

G&B and its counsel continue to believe that G&B is entitled to be granted
relief from any such false claims by AIP/APS under the Lanham Act's
protection against unfair competition. Gordon and Breach is appealing this
decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

We appreciate the Court's conclusion that Gordon and Breach has proved
that librarians would be "ill- advised to rely on Barschall's study to the
exclusion of all other considerations in making purchasing decisions."

Likewise, we are heartened that the Court stated that if the AIP/APS were
to assert that Barschall's methodology proves that their product is
superior in value and quality to that of Gordon and Breach, then serious
concerns would be present. Nevertheless, reasoning that the AIP/APS'
present acknowledgment that Barschall's analysis does not demonstrate
product superiority or quality, and considering that they were effectively
stopped from making such claims in the past and are not threatening to
make such claims in the future, the Court has decided not to bar or enjoin
the AIP/APS from making any such claims.

We are concerned, however, that the Court, in rendering its decision,
chose to highlight its displeasure with the AIP/APS's claims that G&B
sought through litigious venues to suppress adverse comment upon its
journals. We believe that all businesses need to be able to protect their
employees, whether scientists, researchers or professionals, from the
threat of grave harm to their enterprises. It should be noted that these
'comments' were not merely isolated price complaints. In most of these
instances, G&B faced threats and aggressive actions in the form of
circulated and published articles that used erroneous information to
foster boycotts and cancellations of its journals. We believe that our
course of action is the least that should be expected from any business so
threatened, and further, that all actions pursued by us were wholly within
our rights and, especially, our duties as a duly formed and operating
corporation.

 -30-