A garments retail businessman has agreed to settle amicably his unfair competition suits against a chain of clothing and fashion stores, nipping in the bud a trademark controversy that can clog the courts.

Romeo Chong, owner of G2000 outlets in Shoemart and Robinsons malls, and Arthur Coronel, president of C. Merchants Corp., signed last week a compromise agreement, which has been filed before the Justice Department for approval.

C. Merchants operates Cinderella, U2, Espirit, Pierre Cardin, Clarke’s, Osh Kosh, and British India.

Coronel’s counsel, Bienvenido Somera of the Carpio Villaraza Cruz Law, said the signed document would be reviewed by the department before directing the public prosecutors to file a motion to withdraw the criminal information at the courts where the cases were filed.

Somera said Chong sued C. Merchants before the regional trial courts of Makati, Pasig, Quezon City, Mandaluyong, San Juan, and Manila.

“Both parties had agreed to divide the seized items between them in exchange for the dropping of all the charges,” Somera said, referring to clothes Chong taken from C. Merchants last year.

Also agreed upon was a certain sum of money as a form of compensation.

In his complaint on Aug. 13, 2007, Chong said he found out that C. Merchants stores were selling clothes under the “GII” mark, which he said was a copy of his “G2000” trade name.

Chong claimed that G2000 is registered under his name in the Intellectual Property Office and that he is affiliated with the G2000 (Apparel) Ltd. of Hong Kong, a prominent garments business in Hong Kong, China, and Malaysia.

“Despite the fact that the Cinderella group is the outlet of goods under different brands, it is clear that the only reason why it used the mark GII is to ride on the goodwill of the mark G2000 with GII pronounced as G-two or the first syllables of my trademark G2000 pronounced as G-two-thousand.”

He said using GII constituted unfair competition and “for the record, the outlets of Cinderella group [C. Merchants] are not my authorized outlets.” Ferdinand Fabella

Adapted from ManilaStandardToday