Brussels / Geneva, 09/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The WTO is said to partially side with the European Union in the dispute between it and the United States regarding the intellectual property of the brand of rum "Havana Club" claimed by the French firm Pernod-Ricard and American Bacardi.
Last September, the EU lodged a request for a WTO dispute settlement panel, as it considered that the United States had breached intellectual property agreements, refusing to let Pernod-Ricard register the brand "Havana Club" in the United States. In February of the same year, the American courts had indeed refused to register this brand basing itself of "Section 211" of trade legislation, which prevents American courts recognizing brands of Cuban origin linked to goods nationalized after the Cuban revolution. Pernod-Ricard considered itself to have been seriously harmed as Bacardi secured the authorization to market a rum under the same brand name "Havana Club" in the United States, brand sold in the rest of the world by Pernod-Ricard since 1993 (see EUROPE of 29 September 2000).
The report by the panel of experts, that should be made public on 6 August, is said to agree with the EU, considering that the American courts should have listened to Pernod-Ricard, say European sources. However, the conclusions could be more negative for the EU as to the substance of the case, the same sources hint, without going into the details of this still confidential report.
Indeed, the panel experts considered that, as to substance, WTO Member States may freely set rules that determine the allocation of brands, refusing, for example, "usurped" brands, as does "Section 211" of the American legislation. Yet, at the request of Member states meeting within the "113 Committee" on trade policy, the European Commission only attacked American "Section 211" before the WTO and not the specific case of Pernod-Ricard. In other words, the panel accuses the American courts of having "prejudiced as to substance" the request for the brand allocation, whereas it is said to have left the United States the power to refuse the allocation of this "Havana Club" brand.
Historically, the "Havana Club" brand belonged to a Cuban family exiled in the United States after 59 and who had not renewed the registration of the brand by the deadline of 1973. In 1976, the Cuban State had taken it over, then in 1995 marketed it through a joint-venture with Pernod-Ricard. Problems appeared in 1998, when "Section 211" was adopted.