A remarkable and paradigmatic case shows the widespread diffusion of the IR Global network and proves that cooperation among Members’ firms leads to success: four IR Global Members’ firms – Bacciardi and Partners (Italy), Advokatfirman Nova AB (Sweden), SKW Schwarz (Germany) and FBP Legal (Italy) – lead their clients through the storm of an international dispute and manage to achieve a successful settlement.
The case relates to the termination of a distribution and license agreement between an Italian company, which manufactures and sells worldwide cookware, and its German distributor.
In order to make the distributor’s activity more effective, the Italian company allowed the distributor to include the Italian company’s trademark in its company name and to register a “.de” domain name under such trademark.
In October 2016, the Italian company terminated the agreement for material breaches attributable to the German distributor. The distributor claimed that termination was illegitimate and, thus, it refused to change its company name and to cancel the domain name (and the related website) registered under the Italian company’s trademark.
In June 2017, the Italian company filed a request for arbitration against the German distributor with the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, according to the arbitration clause included in the agreement. The agreement also provided for the application of Italian laws.
The IR Global law firms involved in the arbitral proceeding were Bacciardi and Partners and Advokatfirman Nova AB for the Italian company and SKW Schwarz and FBP Legal for the German distributor.
The four IR Global law firms were able to lead their respective clients to amicably solve the dispute.
In fact, the Italian company and the German distributor signed a settlement agreement whereby (a) the Italian company dropped its claim and (b) the German distributor dropped its counterclaim and undertook to remove the Italian company’s trademark from the company name, the domain name and the website.
During 2018, the four IR Global law firms have continued their cooperation in order to ensure fulfillment of the settlement agreement and secured a successful conclusion of the case for all the parties involved.
