Early on the morning of the 19. august met the bailiff up unannounced at Jysks headquarters in Brabrand.
An hour before the group had announced that Jysks founder, Lars Larsen, was dead of cancer.
While Jysk employees put the flag at half, went the bailiff of action, and seized large quantities of material. It was everything from books and pictures to mailkorrespondancer and accounts.
the Bailiff’s visit in august was the prelude to a case, which is to develop into a massive legal action against Jysk.
Behind the suit, says the designer, Mette Ditmer, who through 24 years has designed house wares, which are sold at fine locations in the entire world.
She charges Jysk for the completely exorbitant to have copied her company’s designs and then mass produce it in a cheaper version and sell it in Jysks shops.
the Case took its beginning in the spring of 2019.
Here came one of Mette Ditmers employees a day to go to her office and explained that she had just seen some badeværelsesartikler in the local Jysk store, which looked like Mette Ditmers to the confusion.
“I was angry. Now we have time and again seen to be copied, but never so solid,” says Mette Ditmer:
“I decided that I would not bend the neck longer. It’s not about the money. It is purely the principle. It is completely unbelievable that the big giants such as Jysk, which earns billions every year, need to steal somebody else’s design.”
In the first place took Mette in direct contact with Jysks legal department.
They dismissed her completely blank.
“It was a very arrogant treatment,” recalls Mette Ditmer:
“So I allied myself with lawyer Johan Subsiding. We then wrote to Jysk again. We got nothing out of. And so we went to the bailiff’s court.”
Johan Bleak is the lawyer, which through several years has led a similar action for damages for the designer Anne Black against the Salling Group.
In the case, reads the accusation that the Net has copied the ceramic designs.
Johan Subsiding went in the summer in action at Jutland on behalf of the Mette Ditmer.
“the Bailiff carried out a preservation of evidence in august,” says Johan Bleak, lawyer at IP Lawyers:
“We got a ruling in court that we can get everything that I have asked to get insight in. But the decision to have Jysk in the ditch to the high court.”
Jysk will not have that Mette Ditmer and her lawyer will get full insight in the material.
the high court now to decide.
Under all circumstances, believes Johan Bleak that it ends up in the action for damages of a very considerable size.
“I have no doubt that this is a case of a millionerstatning,” he says.
At Jysk are you ready to meet Mette Ditmer and Johan Subsiding in court.
“I must stress that Jysk, of course, have not copied others’ products. So we take this very clearly distance ourselves,” says Rune Jungberg Pedersen, press officer at Jysk:
“We believe that this is a design you see in several places in the industry. It is a relatively popular design. So we strongly disagree with the argument they are making, and therefore, we also look forward to get a decision in the case. We mean, of course, that we have the right.”
Rune Jungberg Pedersen has also sent B. T. imagery, which was to show that the other dealers in Denmark have designs similar to both Jysks and Mette Ditmers.
Jysk has not, however, know which shops the other designs are taken from.
Mette Ditmer is convinced that she will win the case.
“It is expensive, and it is David’s fight against Goliath. But I believe in the justice system and that our case is so sure, that we at one time or another will get our money back,” says Mette Ditmer:
“We’ll do it here, because we believe that it is important that our industry stands together against the big ones, who are copying our design. It is quite unreasonable, and it is unfair behavior.”
“My hope is that, at one point being created mediedebat enough that the giants end their produktkopieringer. It is our livelihood, our credibility and survival as designbrands is at stake.”
