Score one for Proctor & Gamble. They were recently awarded $19.25 million (US) by a jury in a civil lawsuit against former Amway (now Alticor) distributors. Apparently spreading false rumors about other companies is not “fair competition” in the United States.

For years, P&G was rumored to be affiliated with Satanists, and people were encouraged to avoid buying their products. The rumor has been around since the early 1980’s and a good history of the P&G Satanist story can be found at Snopes. While it is unknown who exactly started the rumor, P&G did filed numerous lawsuits against Amway Corp.

In this latest trial, P&G claimed that the Amway distributors used a voice mail system to tell thousands of P&G customers that they were Satanists. It turns out it really happened, and after numerous retractions and apologies Amway was dropped from the case. But the distributors weren’t so lucky and they were found guilty of violating the Lanham Act which makes false advertising and unfair competition illegal.

Well, being affiliated with satanists doesn’t seem to have hurt P&G much. This year they topped the Household and Personal care top 50 with $40 billion in sales.