Trading Standards & Intellectual Property Offences

Stokoe Partnership Solicitors is recognised as one of the leading firms specialising in representing corporate and individual defendants facing investigation and prosecution for trading standards and intellectual property offences.

Our expert lawyers have been at the forefront of this area of the law, including bringing the recent appeal to the Supreme Court (R v M, C & T [2017] UKSC 58) in relation to whether section 92 of the Trade Marks Act 1994 applies to the grey market.

Our specialist lawyers can assist with advice and representation in relation to:

• Grey market trading
• Counterfeit goods
• Trade description offences
• Consumer protection and unfair trading
• Product safety issues
• Product labelling offences
• Breaches of age requirements
• Closure notices and closure orders

Notable cases

We represented three clients regarding offences of counterfeiting relating to the sale of ‘grey market goods’. This was the first criminal prosecution in the UK of these particular types of goods, as historically these were dealt with between the parties in the civil courts. This case resulted in a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court, impacting both criminal law and civil law in respect of grey market goods.

The Supreme Court ruled that ‘grey’ goods fell under the ambit of the criminal law, as opposed to the civil law and allowed the prosecution to continue. Notwithstanding the ruling at trial we successfully defeated the criminal prosecution on grounds of non-disclosure by the prosecution. Such was the scale of the alleged misconduct by the investigation team that the Court took the unusual stance of awarding costs to reimburse the full legal costs of all our clients.

We represented this client who was alleged to be part of an organisation to supply on a commercial level counterfeit goods. Following lengthy negotiations with the Crown, we were able to limit our client’s alleged involvement resulting in her avoiding an immediate custodial sentence.