MEXICO CITY (apro).- The Frida Kahlo Corporation (FKC) filed two lawsuits once morest online sellers, whose allegation indicates that products related to the image of the Mexican artist have been sold, without authorization from this company.
The corporation seeks to obtain all the profits that the alleged counterfeiters have made from the sales of Kahlo merchandise or – failing that – negotiate for $2 million “for each and every counterfeit use of the trademarks,” the report said. news service specialized in civil litigation, Courthouse News.
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“The images, works of art and derivative works of the defendants are practically identical and/or substantially similar to the works of Frida Kahlo,” the company alleged in its main lawsuit, according to the same medium.
“Such conduct infringes and continues to infringe the works of Frida Kahlo in violation of (US trademark law).”
The FKC alleged in its lawsuit that the online merchants operated under “fictitious names” to sell items on Amazon and other platforms, thus obtaining products from a “common source” while working together to evade legal scrutiny, Courthouse detailed. News.
Meanwhile, this company – which controls 51% of Kahlo’s brand – has been in a legal dispute with the Mexican woman’s family for almost 10 years. In 2004, the painter’s only heir, Isolda Pinedo, transferred the brand to Frida Kahlo Corporation, a public limited company created in Panama. The family was left with a 49% participation.
The owners of the company are Panamanians Harmodio Herrera Villareal and Carolina Tejada de Carney, who appear linked to companies in Seychelles, Bahamas, Malta, among others, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), as reported by El País. . Carlos Dorado – creator of the “Frida Kahlo Tequila” brand – has served as president since 2004; Mara Romeo, great-niece of the artist, appears as secretary.
The problems between both parties began when Pinedo’s descendants, Mara Romeo and Mara de Anda, considered that the agreement they had signed was being “systematically breached.” The family has attempted to regain control over the firm ever since.
In 2018, the artist’s family managed to obtain a precautionary order from a judge of the Superior Court of Justice of Mexico City, which stopped the marketing – in Mexico – of a Barbie doll, which had been inspired by the artist and had authorization from FKC to the toy company, Mattel.
“Frida was not a Barbie, she was a woman with defects,” declared Mara de Anda, the painter’s great-grandniece, during an interview in May 2022 with El País.
In December 2021, the FKC company reported that it won the litigation for the worldwide use of the trademark, image, signature and portrait of Frida Kahlo, following the court declared itself “incompetent” to resolve the case.
Now both parties are responsible for safeguarding the artist’s trademark assets, but only this, since the assets of her work are managed by the National Bank of Mexico.
