NEW YORK — Franck Muller USA said Wednesday that it had reached two separate court-ordered settlements in lawsuits it filed against Delmas Inc. and Montres Allison.
Muller said it had won a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court on Sept. 20 against Delmas Inc., which engaged in trademark infringement and unfair competition by distributing gray-market watches in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. The court barred Delmas from importing, selling or distributing any watch bearing the Franck Muller trademark in those countries and regions.
“FMUSA takes the gray market very seriously and will take whatever lawful measures are available to shut down the operations of all gray-market traffickers who put these watches into circulation,” the company said in a statement.
Delmas could not be reached for comment.
The company also said it had reached a court-ordered settlement in June, but did not reveal until Wednesday, in a lawsuit it had filed against Montres Allison, a Denver-based luxury watch firm. The settlement came after Montres Allison retracted a press release in which it claimed Muller’s Swiss-made watches used Russian and Far Eastern components.
Montres Allison used the claims to promote its American-made fine watches, which it said have been worn by such celebrities as Celine Dion, Dennis Hopper and Steven Seagal. The firm posted the retraction on various news Web sites on June 18.
Muller had sued for defamation after the 2005 press release and now accepts the retraction and an apology as part of the court settlement.
“FMUSA believes that this resolution holds the Allison defendants accountable,” Muller’s lead attorney, Michael Miller, said in a statement. “No matter how much a watch manufacturer might wish to carve out a market for its watches, it does not justify the issuance of false and defamatory statements about another watch brand and the Swiss watch industry generally.”