WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Department of Justice today announced that Eastman Kodak Company has agreed to restructure its plans to purchase assets of Bell & Howell Company, by abandoning its purchase of the document scanner business, in order to resolve the Department's antitrust concerns. The Department said that the deal as originally proposed would have led to a loss of important head-to-head competition for high-speed document scanners resulting in higher prices for customers and reduced product innovation.

Under the terms of the restructured transaction, Kodak will abandon its acquisition of Bell & Howell's document scanner business, including the popular Copiscan and 8000Plus series, but will still acquire the remaining businesses of Bell & Howell Imaging Company, including its worldwide electronic equipment service business. Bell & Howell will retain and continue to operate the document scanner business and its related assets. The restructured transaction will maintain existing competition in the sale of high-speed document scanners.

Kodak and Bell & Howell are industry leaders in the mid-range and high-end document scanner segments of the scanner business. The scanners that caused the competitive concern handle and convert into electronic form several sizes of paper documents at various speeds of up to 125 pages per minute and can cost as much as $40,000 each.

Bell & Howell, a Delaware corporation, is headquartered in Skokie, Illinois. It provides information services and solutions to a range of businesses worldwide, including educational and Internet information and publishing and electronic mailing technologies. Bell & Howell reported revenues of more than $960 million in 1999.

Kodak, a New Jersey corporation, is headquartered in Rochester, New York. Kodak provides a wide range of products throughout the world, including imaging, media and micrographic products and services and camera technologies and related equipment; it reported revenues of more than $14 billion in 1999.