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News from the Caribbean as of
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Bacardi to defend 'vigorously' in Havana Club lawsuit
Thursday, August 17, 2006
by Dan Weeks
LONDON, England (Bloomberg): Bacardi Ltd will defend itself "vigorously" against a lawsuit by Pernod Ricard SA over the U.S. rights to the Havana Club rum brand, the subject of a 10-year legal battle.
Pernod, the Paris-based maker of Stolichnaya vodka, said August 8 it would appeal a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruling barring the company from selling the rum in the U.S. Bacardi said today in a Business Wire statement that it has applied to register the brand in its own name. A Cuban government agency had registered the trademark in the U.S. in 1976.
The dispute over the Havana Club rights has drawn in U.S. courts and the World Trade Organization.
Pernod sells the rum in 183 countries in a joint venture with Cuba's government, which has used the brand name since seizing the company that originally made the spirit in 1960. Bacardi has said it bought the brand from its family owners in 1996.
The French company "has no trademark registration and no rights to the Havana Club brand in the United States," Pembroke, Bermuda-based Bacardi, the world's biggest maker of rum, said in today's statement.
Stock in Pernod rose 30 cents, or 0.2 percent, to 168 euros in Paris. Bacardi, the owner of Grey Goose vodka, was started in 1862 and remains under the control of family members. The company, which in September appointed a great-grandson of its founder as chairman, has said it doesn't plan to sell shares.
Bacardi has said it's putting the 80-proof Havana Club on sale in the U.S. this month at a suggested retail price of $19.99 a bottle. The patent office on Aug. 3 declared Cuba's U.S. registration of the trademark "canceled/expired," according to the distiller.
The rum's bottle "clearly states" on its front that Havana Club actually is made in Puerto Rico and makes no claim of Cuban manufacture, the company said today. Rum differs from champagne, scotch, cognac and bourbon -- which by law must be made in specific places -- in that it needs no geographic designation, according to the distiller.
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