A three member bench of the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has imposed a penalty of Rs 5,000,000 on a company, involved in deceptive marketing practices, which also used trademark of M/s Starbucks Corporation USA. According to an order issued by three member bench of the CCP here on Thursday, the unauthorized use of starbucks marks by the Respondent company is spanned over a substantial period of time. 'While, the M/s Options International (SMC-Pvt.) Limited (the 'Respondent' or 'Options') has taken steps to remove the trademark of the Complainant from its Restaurant and has also stopped marketing, however, on its social media, still some images were found during the instant proceedings i.e. on
15th August 2018. Further, the deceptive marketing in lieu of starbucks marks continued for a substantial time, which factor cannot be ignored while imposing the penalty on the Respondent. In view of the foregoing, and for violating the provision of Section 10 of the Act, the CCP Bench is constrained to impose a penalty of Rs 5,000,000on the Respondent, which the Respondent shall deposit with the Registrar within 60 days from the date of the Order.
In case of non-compliance with this order, the Respondent shall be made further liable under subsection (3) of Section 38 of the Competition Act to pay an additional penalty amounting to Rs 100,000 per day from the date of this order.
The Respondent company has submitted that it has withdrawn the use of starbuck marks upon realizing that its conduct constitutes a contravention of section 10 of the Competition Act and it is further willing to comply with any directions/orders of the Commission.
The CCP bench order said that the Starbucks is an American public company. It operates one of the largest coffee houses chains by itself or through authorized licensees/franchisees across the world under the registered trademark "STARBUCKS" and various variations of its wordmark(s) and logo(s). The company is widely recognized for its unique circular logo containing an image of a twin-tailed mermaid/siren in white and deep green colour with or without the Starbucks wordmarks around the logo.
The CCP bench further ordered that the Respondent is further directed to inform the public at large, that it has used the starbucks marks without any authorization or license from Starbuck in contravention of Section 10(2)(d) read with Section 10(1) of the Competition Act through appropriate clarifications in two (2) major daily Urdu and English newspapers for three (3) days consecutively from the date of this order.
The Office of the Registrar of the Commission is further directed to send copies of this order to the Respondents' respective chamber of commerce and/or trade association for general information in the market, CCP bench added.