On September 27, 2021, the Fifteenth Arbitration Court of Appeal upheld the Decision of the Arbitration Court of the Krasnodar region to bring the importer of goods imitating «Kinder Joy» products using the «SURPRISE» trademarks in Cyrillic and Latin to administrative liability following article 14.10 of the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses.
The dispute in the court of appeal was not only whether the use of the «SURPRISE» designation on the product was the infringement of «Ferrero» S.p.A. rights, but also whether a foreign manufacturer of goods should be involved in the consideration of an administrative offense case if no actions had been taken on the territory of Russia to introduce the goods into civil circulation and he was never held accountable. The manufacturer filed an independent appeal, asking the court of appeal to consider the dispute according to the rules of the first instance - on the merits. The proceedings regarding that complaint were terminated, and the decision of the court of first instance was upheld.
«Ferrero» S.p.A. was represented in this dispute by Senior Associate Anastasia Zalesova and Senior Partner Irina Ozolina. For more details about the case please refer to the link.