Now in its sixth year, Class 46 is dedicated to European trade mark
law and practice. This weblog is written by a team of enthusiasts who
want to spread the word and share their thoughts with others.
MONDAY, 30 AUGUST 2010 Greece - penalty clauses and trade mark agreements
The Athens Court of Appeal has given litigants in Greece a
good precedent to enforce penalty clauses in trade mark related agreements,
which have taken a wrong turn (or two). The story is not particularly original,
though it takes place in the realm of hairdressing! As it so often happens, a
group of people joined forces to open a hairdressing business, in the form of a
general partnership company. The trade marks were registered in the name of one
of the partners who licensed them to the company.When they all decided they’ve had enough of
each other, they signed an agreement whereby the license was revoked and the
remaining partners were given a grace period to remove the trade marks from
signs, printed matter etc. A penalty clause of 1.000 euro/day was set in case
of infringement.
And as it, also, so often happens, the agreement
was breached for a period of just over a hundred days. The injured party went
on to enforce its rights and the case reached the Court of Appeal of Athens.
The Court, after carefully setting out the legal requirements for enforcement
of a penalty clause, upheld the particular penalty clause, rejecting the
defendants’ arguments claiming that the penalty was disproportionate. So, for
Greece, 1.000 euro per day for penalty clauses seems safe enough. The judgment
received number 873/2010 and is available only in Greek. If any of the readers
of this blog is interested, I’d be happy to forward it with a summary translation.
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