Levi Strauss 3--Tesco 0: Ravinder Chahil looks back over events behind the litigation between a retailer and brand owner as the UK High Court closes the door on Tesco's attempts to sell cut-price Levi's jeans. (Brand Papers)

Brand Strategy, September, 2002 by Ravinder Chahil

This July saw the latest attempt by Tesco's Stores Limited and others to continue selling cheap Levi's jeans come to a sharp halt. The UK High Court decided that the new series of last minute arguments by Tesco did not change the position.

The whole case concerns parallel trade in general and `international exhaustion' in particular. If a trade mark owner places goods bearing a trade mark on the market in the European Economic Area (EEA), those goods are free to circulate anywhere in the EEA. It is quite often the case that parallel trade companies within EEA will buy goods sold under a registered trade mark in one member state (for instance Spain in the example above) where it is sold cheaply and then resell them in another member state at a higher price.

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