LV wins massive $584m award in counterfeit case

The owners of a shopping mall in Georgia, US, have been ordered to pay $584m by a federal judge in damages to Louis Vuitton (LV) in a lawsuit claiming it sold counterfeit versions of the fashion giant's products.

The judgment in the two-year-old lawsuit– first reported in The Fashion Law – has been recorded against Westgate Discount Mall owner Basirou Kebbay and chief executive Aaron Kebe and is believed to be one of the largest ever penalties awarded in a counterfeiting case in the US.

The complaint filed by LV in April 2023 claims that the retail unit hosted an outdoor flea market at which knock-off copies of branded goods, including LV's own products, were being sold on a "staggering" scale.

The lawsuit stemmed from a 2021 Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) raid that found counterfeit goods at 60 out of the 62 booths at the mall, and ended up with the seizure of  250,000 products, including over 72,000 items bearing counterfeit and infringing Louis Vuitton trademarks that were estimated to be worth tens of millions of dollars if genuine.

In common with many of the cases of this type, the award of the federal court is unlikely to result in a payment to LV of that magnitude, but could spell big financial trouble for the owners of the mall and serve as a deterrent for other facilities allowing counterfeits to be sold on their premises.

Last year, LV also filed a lawsuit against the Boulevard Mall in Las Vegas, claiming it had also created a "safe haven" for the sale of goods bearing counterfeits of its trademarks.

Court documents say this is not the first time that the Westgate Discount Mall has been taken to task over counterfeits, as it previously was placed under a permanent injunction preventing it from allowing counterfeits of Luxottica's Ray-Ban glasses at the site.

"Despite the foregoing, Westgate has failed to implement any rules or adopt or employ any practices or procedures that would reduce or eliminate the counterfeiting occurring at the market," they assert. The defendants also failed to act on repeated warnings that counterfeiting was taking place, which the complaint alleges is because – if they acted – they would have "few, if any, tenants left."

The case is Louis Vuitton Malletier SAS versus Westgate Discount Mall, Inc. et al., 1:23-cv-01541.