In August 2015, Kompania Piwowarska SA’s main competitor, Żywiec SA Group, obtained an injunction based on the Act on Combating Unfair Competition, inter alia, by Kompania Piwowarska being banned from distributing flavoured beers in specific packaging (cans and multipacks).

DZP acted successfully for Kompania Piwowarska in the case. Our experts filed an appeal against a decision issued by the Regional Court and at the end of November the Court of Appeal upheld the appeal, changed the lower instance court’s decision and thus dismissed the application for an injunction in full.

The applicant had accused our client of misleading consumers as to the producer and of so-called  parasitic copying, i.e. of deliberately making its product packaging similar to that of the applicant’s product in order to benefit from the positive associations established among consumers. In the appeal DZP’s lawyers raised both formal and merit-based allegations, with a key element being that Kompania Piwowarska’s business and the trademarks it uses were shown in historical terms. It was also important to expose the origins of the packaging that allegedly infringed the applicant’s rights.

We also made a general and detailed analysis of the packaging of the two products, the results of which did not confirm the applicant’s claims. Our case was that the injunction was extremely  burdensome and would lead de facto to restrictions on competition for several years. We also demanded that a deposit of over PLN 22 million be paid by the opposing party to secure claims arising from the injunction.

The case was handled by a team of DZP lawyers headed by Paweł Lewandowski, Partner in the Dispute Resolution Practice. Other lawyers involved in the project were Dr Bartosz Karolczyk, Associate in the Dispute Resolution Practice, and Jarosław Konecko, Senior Associate in the IP&TMT Practice.