Starbucks Corporation and Simon Property Group have reached a settlement in a lawsuit that prevented the coffee house giant from closing 77 of the company’s 379 Teavana retail locations.
“While we don’t have specifics around store closures, we can confirm that we’ve reached an agreement with Simon to settle our dispute,” a Starbucks spokeswoman said in an email.
“We are thankful to our customers who have enjoyed Teavana tea at these specialty retail locations and will continue to emphasize Teavana tea in new and different ways at Starbucks.”
Published reports indicated that some of the shops in malls operated by Simon Property Group had already closed.
Starbucks had announced in July that it planned to close all of the Teavana shops by January 2018, but an Indiana Court found in favor of the mall operator, which had sued Starbucks in August over leases that required the Seattle-based chain to continue to operate the shops until their leases — some of which extended as far as Jan. 31, 2027 — expired.
Simon Property Group did not respond to requests for comment
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