The Appellate Court of Linz, Austria, handed SPI Group yet another significant legal victory, confirming its ownership of the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya trademarks.
SPI Group has been battling the Russian state-owned entity Federal Treasury Enterprise Sojuzplodoimport (FKP or FTE) over the trademarks.
The decision is binding only in Austria. In its decision, the Austrian Appellate Court held that interim judgments BY Dutch courts as well as the later Dutch judgments do not have any binding effect on the Austrian proceedings.
The Austrian Court also:
P Rejected the Dutch Courts’ approach that an invalidity of the Russian privatization would not be subject to any limitation period;
P Noted that the approach used by the Dutch Courts’ ignores the fact that the privatization had for many years been considered by all persons involved, including the Russian State, as legal and had been implemented and “lived” as such, until the change of political power in Russia in1999/2000 which ushered in a change of view; and
P Observed that the considerations by the Dutch Courts tune out any specific discussion on the merits on Russian limitation law.
In contrast to the Dutch approach, in the Austrian proceedings, extensive court expert opinions were rendered and concluded that Russian limitation law applies and precluded FKP’s claims.
To date, the Dutch decisions are the notable anomaly in the global dispute, SPI said.