Malta court orders destruction of 7,000 counterfeit Adidas trainers

Sportswear giant Adidas has had its request for the destruction of a shipment of some 6,800 pairs of counterfeit trainers, which had been seized by customs in August, upheld.

The German manufacturer had filed a case claiming its intellectual property rights had been breached by the consignment of shoes that arrived on the MV CMA-CGM MEDEA on 5 August. The bill of lading indicated that the shoes, bearing the three-stripe “trefoil device” trademark and the brand name “Adidas” had been shipped from Algeria by Good Promotion Enterprise Limited and were destined for re-export in the EU.

Lawyer Antoine Camilleri, on behalf of the German company, had asked the court to declare the items to be in contravention of laws protecting both intellectual property and EU Trade Mark registrations and to order their destruction.

The products had been unloaded in a container at the Marsaxlokk freeport in August and inspected by customs officers, who began to suspect that the items were counterfeit. Subsequent tests proved the officers’ suspicions right.

The defendants pleaded ignorance of the facts of the case and reserved the right to table a reply at a later stage.

Judge Mark Chetcuti, presiding the First Hall of the Civil Court, noted that documents submitted with the court application had essentially confirmed the plaintiff’s allegations in their entirety. It ordered the Comptroller of Customs to destroy the items within 90 days of the sentence. No compensation was to be given to the defendants for this, the court ruled.

The defendants were additionally ordered to suffer all costs involved in the transport, storage and destruction of the items in question.