NUTRITIONAL AND FOOD SUPPLEMENTS LITIGATION
(Trademark Infringement, Domain Name Theft and
Breach of Corporate Obligations)

CLIENT sells nutritional supplements. A DISTRIBUTOR sells nutritional supplements including, but not limited to, CLIENT’s products. DISTRIBUTOR was a former director and officer of CLIENT. While an officer of CLIENT, DISTRIBUTOR registered a domain name representing CLIENT’s flagship product. He left CLIENT and refused to return the domain name, instead registering two more domains incorporating CLIENT trademarks. We sued DISTRIBUTOR in federal court. Thereafter, DISTRIBUTOR sued CLIENT in state court for breach of an exclusive distributorship contract and filed a third state court suit against CLIENT corporate officers on a variety of tort theories. The state court suits were not handled by this firm. The litigation was particularly acrimonious given the party’s prior personal relationships and proceeded fully to trial. At trial, we called the DISTRIBUTOR as our first witness. He would be the only party witness. After three days on the witness stand, DISTRIBUTOR settled the federal suit, returning the domain names, removing infringing materials from the DISTRIBUTOR website and further dismissed the two state suits. The CLIENT estimated saving in excess of $150,000.00 in legal fees from the dismissal of the two state cases.