Pernod Ricard and Bacardi Ltd. are battling over ownership in the U.S. of the Havana Club brand name,
a
Wall Street Journal
report said.
“Bacardi, started in 1862 by one of Cuba's oldest families, says it owns rights to the brand after buying it from Havana Club's founding family, the Arechabalas, who, like the Bacardis, fled Cuba when Fidel Castro's government nationalized the island's distilleries in 1960,” the
Journal
article said. Bacardi has sold rum under the Havana Club name and made it in Puerto Rico “off and on since 1995,” the article said. Bacardi is still closely held and family-controlled.
For its part, Pernod, which is also family-led, says it made a deal in 1993 with the Cuban government to obtain the rights to sell Havana Club rum around the world, “including the U.S., where sales of the brand currently are blocked by the 1962 trade embargo,” the report said.
Pernod is currently expanding its distillery in Cuba, while Bacardi is ramping up U.S. distribution of Havana Club rum, the
Journal
article said.
“The conflict is commercial and personal: Bacardi family members lost their homes, and the company lost its distillery to Castro's government after the revolution,” the article said.
The feud between the two companies over Havana Club began in 1994. Before that, they were partners: Pernod distributed Bacardi rum until Bacardi got its own distribution system in 1992. Former Pernod chairman Patrick Ricard made the deal with the Cuban government in 1993 and “determined Cuba held Havana Club trademarks in key markets, including the U.S., where the Arechabala family had let its trademark lapse in 1973,” the
Journal
article said.
The Arechabala family unsuccessfully protested the partnership between Pernod and Cuba and then sold the Havana Club brand to Bacardi, which made a version of Havana Club for the U.S. using the Arechabala family's recipe, the article said.
Pernod and Cuba's Havana Club International unsuccessfully sued Bacardi in the U.S. for trademark infringement in 1996. An affiliate of Havana Club International later lost its U.S. trademark. In January, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office reinstated the Cuban government's trademark for Havana Club. Bacardi has brought suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that seeks to have that trademark canceled; the case is currently pending, the
Journal
article said. (Source:
Wall Street Journal
, May 31, 2016.)
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