Fashion Forum

This one ought to be interesting should it reach court;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Italian fashion group Fendi S.R.L. sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in U.S. federal court on Friday, accusing the world's largest retailer of selling counterfeit handbags and passing them off as genuine at its Sam's Club warehouse stores.

Sam's Club stores in California, New York, Florida and other states sold knock off handbags, wallets and key chains that were identified as "genuine" Fendi products, according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The suit by Fendi said that Wal-Mart has never purchased its products and never asked Fendi if any of the items bearing its trademark were genuine.

Fendi products are typically sold at high-end department stores like Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue in the United States and Fendi boutiques all over the world.

Wal-Mart said late on Friday that it had not seen the complaint and therefore could not comment.

In one example cited in the lawsuit, a black handbag bearing Fendi's trademark logo was offered for sale in a Sam's Club store in Miami for $508.25, 45 percent less than the retail price of $930 for a genuine Fendi bag.
Fendi, a unit of French luxury goods maker LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton said in the suit that Wal-Mart has made millions of dollars selling the counterfeit goods.

Fendi is seeking unspecified damages and asked that the handbags and other illegal Fendi merchandise be destroyed.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

Yay, and they richly deserve it, Its quite upsetting that on one hand we have the RIAA or whatever it is they're called this week sueing little grannies for downloading the latest Jeniffer Lopez song, and another huge American (icon?) thing pirating handbags.

Like that really annoying add goes?

Would you steal a handbag?

Remember Piracy is Stealing.

What actually surprises me the most about this is the price point that Sam's Club had the bag at. If they're a fake, they're worth all of $20 and are usually priced accordingly!

The article says Wal mart was passing them off as genuine, which I guess would explain the higher price tag. The odd thing is that, anyone really familiar with Fendi would know that even that price point was unrealistically low, you'd think!! Or, if these are NOT being passed off as real, and are just called "Fendi-inspired" by Wal-mart, I'm curious as to how courts decide these kinds of cases. Are there fashion "experts" who are called upon to testify as to when a certain design is actually being ripped off? Interesting.