Danish supermarket chain loses fake Ralph Lauren case

A Danish supermarket chain has been ordered to pay compensation to Ralph Lauren after selling and promoting counterfeit copies of its clothes.

Last month, Copenhagen’s Commercial and Maritime Court ordered Dansk Supermarked to pay damages to Ralph Lauren of around DKK 200,000 ($36,000) and DKK 25,000 in costs after hearing that its Føtex chain had advertised the fakes to the public in Denmark in brochures distributed to 1.8 million households.

Dansk Supermarked claimed it was unaware that the goods were fake, but the court ruled it had not acted with sufficient rigour to determine whether the clothes were authentic and that its buyer should have been able to tell they were imitations.

All told, the chain sold around 1,600 counterfeit polo shirts at a retail price of DKK 240. The fakes were sourced from a supplier in Poland.

Analysts have noted that counterfeit products represents a growing problem for the company, especially in markets such as China, and the quality of counterfeit products has been improving over the past few years.