A Chilean appellate court has ruled that the nation’s National Fisheries and Agricultural Services must issue its data about antibiotics in Chilean salmon, which revealed that 50 salmon firms jointly used 450.7 metric tons of antibiotics in 2013. Chile’s Council for Transparency previously refused to release the information to conservation organization Oceana, arguing that the disaggregated data could be used against individual companies. The court disagreed, reportedly ruling, “The reasons given by the claimed party to refuse the requested information are not consistent with what establish the applicable regulations.” The report comes months after Costco Wholesale Corp. announced it would reduce the proportion of its salmon stock from 90 percent Chilean salmon to 40 percent in favor of salmon from Norway, whose fish-farming companies on average use lower amounts of antibiotics. See Fish Information & Services, September 11, 2015; Undercurrent News, September 21, 2015. Issue 579
Category Archives Global Courts
Germany’s highest court has ruled that Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Sprüngli did not violate German confectioner Haribo’s trademark “Gold Bear” when it began selling a chocolate bear wrapped in gold foil in 2011. Haribo has produced Gold-Bear® gummy bears for several decades, which are sold in gold packages featuring a yellow bear wearing a red ribbon and bow tied around its neck. Lindt’s gold-clad chocolate bear also wears a red ribbon tied in a bow around its neck, styled after the company’s chocolate Easter bunny products. Haribo claimed in 2012 that consumers were likely to be confused by Lindt’s packaging; a trial court agreed, but an intermediate appellate court overturned the ruling. The Federal Court of Justice has affirmed the appellate ruling, reportedly saying in a German-language statement that it wants to avoid the danger of “product design monopolisation.” Information about Haribo’s 2012 complaint appears in Issue 462 of this…
France’s administrative supreme court, Conseil d’Etat, has ruled that PlasticsEurope’s challenge to the country’s ban on bisphenol A (BPA) in food-contact materials can be heard in its Constitutional Council because the legal question presented is new. The plastics group argued that the opinion from the French Agency for Food, Environment and Occupational Health and Safety that the 2012 prohibition cited as justification was inadequate because it was a “danger study” rather than an “evaluation of risks.” The Constitutional Council now has three months to rule on the case. See Bloomberg BNA, June 19, 2015. Issue 570
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has found that a correct and complete list of ingredients can be part of an overall misleading food label in a case challenging a German tea company’s “Felix Raspberry and Vanilla Adventure” (“Felix Himbeer-Vanille Abenteuer”) product for having no flavorings derived from raspberries or vanilla. Bundesverband der Verbraucherzentralen und Verbraucherverbände v. Teekanne GmbH & Co. KG, No. C-195/14 (E.C.J., order entered June 4, 2015). Teekanne advertises its tea product as fruit tea with natural flavorings and a raspberry-vanilla taste, and the label features depictions of raspberries and vanilla flowers and a seal indicating the product contains only natural ingredients. The ingredient list includes “natural flavouring with a taste of vanilla” and “natural flavouring with a taste of raspberry,” according to the court. “That list thus expresses, in a manner free from doubt, the fact that the flavourings used are not obtained from vanilla and raspberries but…
Yum! Brands Inc.’s KFC has announced on its Chinese-language website that it has filed lawsuits against three Chinese media companies for allegedly spreading rumors that the company has bred its chickens to have eight legs and six wings. The complaint, filed in Shanghai Xuhui District People’s Court, reportedly alleges that the media companies disseminated false information on social media about KFC’s food quality, including digitally altered photos of deformed chickens and rumors of maggots in a delivery order. KFC has more than 4,600 restaurants in China, accounting for about one-half of its revenue. The company reportedly alleges that 4,000 defamatory messages were viewed more than 100,000 times and seeks 1.5 million yuan, or about US$242,000, from each media company as well as an apology. See The Wall Street Journal and Reuters, June 1, 2015. Issue 567
The General Court of the European Union has upheld a ruling that pomazánkové máslo, a product primarily marketed in the Czech Republic, cannot be labeled as “butter” under the single common market organization (CMO) regulation. Czech Republic v. European Commission, No. T-51/14 (Gen. Ct., order entered May 12, 2015). The product, a spread used in similar ways to butter, has a minimum fat content of 31 percent by weight, a minimum dry nonfat milk-material content of 42 percent, and a water content of up to 58 percent. The court ruled that the product does not meet the regulation’s standards, which require between 80 and 90 percent of milk-fat content, a maximum water content of 16 percent and a maximum dry material content of 2 percent. Further, the court ruled, the Czech Republic cannot circumvent the provisions of the single CMO regulation by claiming to be exempt if the product is…
A Dutchman has reportedly been sentenced to jail after authorities determined that his companies sold at least 336 metric tons of horsemeat labeled as beef in 2013. Willy Selten will serve 2.5 years for forging invoices, labels and declarations and using forged documents to sell meat. The court judgment apparently determined that Selten “contributed to a negative image for the Dutch meat industry and damaged the sector’s interests” because he sold the horsemeat-beef mixture to foreign firms. During his trial, Selten admitted that he was negligent with his administration, but he argued that he is “not the big horsemeat swindler they’re all looking for.” Since 2013, Selten declared bankruptcy and faces damages claims of €11 million. Details about the sentencing of two U.K. men related to falsifying documents and failing to keep adequate records appear in Issue 560 of this Update. Issue 561
According to a Crown Prosecution Service press release, Peter Boddy and David Moss have been sentenced in the first prosecutions stemming from the “horsemeat scandal” of 2013. Moss, the slaughterhouse manager, was convicted of falsifying an invoice during a U.K. Food Standards Agency investigation and received a four-month suspended prison sentence. Slaughterhouse owner Boddy was fined ₤8,000 for failing to keep adequate records that could trace the origin of the meat, and each defendant must also pay costs of ₤10,442 within six months. “This deception is serious—the absence of proper records means that it is not possible to identify whether the horsemeat may have entered the human food chain,” the prosecutor said. “It also means that if there was a problem with the horsemeat it would not be possible to recall it.” Issue 560
The European Court of Justice has refused to void a lower court’s decision against Dole Foods confirming an $83 million fine shared with other companies resulting from a finding of collusion to fix the prices of bananas sold in several European countries. Dole Food & Dole Germany v. Commission, No. C-286/13 P (E.C.J., order entered March 19, 2015). Dole sought to annul or reduce its fine, arguing the commission had not proven that the weekly communications between banana-producing companies just before prices were set were intended to fix prices. The company also argued that the lower court had lumped price quotes for green bananas and yellow bananas when the price-quoting schemes are separate. The prices of some bananas were set weeks before they were sold, while other companies sold their inventories at different times, Dole argued; as a result, the bananas from different companies were not in direct competition. The…
The European Union’s (EU’s) Court of Justice has determined that the law requires fresh poultry meat to satisfy the microbiological criteria for foodstuffs and that national law may impose a penalty on “a food business operator which is active only at the distribution stage” for placing a contaminated food product on the market. Reindl v. Bezirkshauptmannschaft Innsbruck, No. C-443/13 (E.C.J., decided November 13, 2014). The issue arose from an Austrian proceeding involving a fine imposed on a food retail manager after a sample from her store of vacuum-packed fresh turkey breast produced and packed by another company was found to be contaminated with Salmonella Typhimurium. The Unabhāngiger Verwaltungssenat in Tirol stayed the proceeding and referred to the EU court the questions whether (i) food business operators “active at the food distribution stage” are subject to the full regime under Regulation (EC) No 2073/2005, and (ii) the microbiological criterion in the…
