Earlier the Arbitration Court of Krasnodar region brought to administrative responsibility the importer of counterfeit goods marked «SURPRISE FOR PRINCESS», which is confusingly similar to the trademark of our client, Ferrero S.p.A.
However, the owner of the infringing goods entered the case having filed an appeal against the decision and asked to to involve it in the case as a third party declaring independent claims in relation to the subject matter of the dispute, since the question of termination of its ownership of the disputed goods was resolved.
The court terminated the appeal having rejected the arguments of the foreign company on the basis of the position taken by the highest court: not bringing the owner of the subject of an administrative offense to the case is not a violation of his rights, since otherwise it would allow the organizers of the illegal transfer of goods to act with impunity to the detriment of customs law and order due to the unknown owners of the goods or their inaccessibility to the Russian jurisdiction. Thus, in order to protect the customs regulations, it is permissible to confiscate the objects of a customs offense from offenders other than the owner, regardless of whether the owner of the property has the right to participate in the case.
The foreign company filed a cassation appeal to the Russian IP Court. The Court initiated two proceedings: proceeding to appeal against the ruling of the Court of appeal and proceeding to appeal against the decision of the Court of the first instance.
On April 27, 2022, there was a hearing on the first proceeding, where the Court upheld the decision of the Court of appeal. The Russian IP Court additionally noted that in that case the approach of administrative law should be applied by analogy, according to which confiscation of the instrument of an administrative offence as a type of punishment is not applied, if the possession of the relevant property by the offender was illegal. In other cases, it can be confiscated regardless of whether it belongs to the offender by right of ownership or not. The Court also noted that the goods in dispute had been delivered under a contract where the buyer bore all risks of loss or damage to the goods from the time the goods passed over the ship at the named port of shipment, i.e. all risks of infringement of customs regulations had passed from the foreign company to the importer in China at the port of Shantou.
Senior Associate Anastasia Zalesova and Senior Partner Irina Ozolina represented the client in the dispute.