HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board has spent almost $300,000 defending a claim by a company that supplied the supermarket wine kiosks in a program that was aborted because the machines were unpopular and allegedly didn't work properly.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (http://bit.ly/1wxQcds ) reported the legal fees in a story Sunday updating the status of the litigation by Simple Brands LLC.

The Montgomery County company is pursuing the matter before the LCB's Board of Claims in Harrisburg, claiming the LCB decisions forced it out of business at a loss of $81 million. The company also says the LCB is delaying the litigation unnecessarily.

But the LCB says the company took six months to respond to a request for legal records, only to dump 126,000 pages on the LCB last month, which the agency is still studying.

___

Information from: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,

http://pghtrib.com