Luxury Conglomerate Richemont Awarded $100 Million in Case Against Watch Counterfeiters

Luxury conglomerate Richemont, which owns haute horlogerie brands like Jaeger-LeCoultre, Cartier, Roger Dubuis, Montblanc and Vacheron Constantin, has won a $100 million judgement against counterfeiters. Women’s Wear Daily has reported that a New York Federal Court awarded the Swiss company damages after the case’s defendants Tony Chen, Fan Bao Dian and the owners of Nanyang Technology Co. Ltd. failed to respond to Richemont’s lawsuit.

In August 2012 Richemont took turned to the courts to take on a number of websites run by the defendants, including Cartierreplicawatch.us, Replicawatchshop.us and Fakeswatches.com. Richemont alleged that these websites sold timepieces which breached trademarks of the conglomerate’s subsidiaries, and Judge William Pauley agreed, granting a permanent injunction in addition to the $100 million in damages. Although it is typically difficult for companies in counterfeit cases to actually collect damages, the New York Federal Court has given Richemont the ability to seize funds from the defendants’ Paypal and other accounts pertaining to the sale of fake watches.

In a big move, Judge William Pauley also ruled that third-party sites like Google can be held responsible for infringing the injunction, which means any advertisements for the defendants’ websites must be taken down. The New York Federal Court also advised it would monitor the defendants’ activities in order to ensure that the injunction is enforced.

Pictured above is Richemont’s headquarters in Bellevue, Switzerland. Source courtesy Women’s Wear Daily.