THE CANCELLATION OF THE TRADE NAME “HABANOS S.A.” REGISTERED LOCALLY BY AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY IS THEREBY ORDERED
CORPORACIÓN HABANOS, S.A. CELEBRATES RULING OF THE COMMERCIAL COURT OF APPEAL IN CASABLANCA, MOROCCO
After more than five years of litigation, Corporación Habanos, S.A. celebrates the ruling of the Commercial Court of Appeal in Casablanca, Morocco, ordering the cancellation of the trade name “Habanos S.A.” registered locally by an unauthorized third party.
In 2017, Corporación Habanos S.A. and Empresa Cubana del Tabaco (CUBATABACO) started legal proceedings to cancel the trade name registered in the North African country by the defendant in 2011. Among the different legal actions carried out by the latter, a lawsuit was filed – admitted in September 2020 – requiring the cancellation of the trade name HABANOS, registered in 2015 in favour of CUBATABACO. In response to this petition, in 2021 the Commercial Court annulled the “HABANOS” trade name registered in 2011 and ordered the removal of the Moroccan company’s trade name. The ruling was appealed, but on December 19th, 2022, the Court of Appeal again ruled in favor of CUBATABACO and Corporación Habanos, S.A., confirming the decision of the Court of First Instance. As a consequence, the judgment was enforced and the Moroccan Commercial Registry was ordered to eliminate the apocryphal trade name.
Corporación Habanos, S.A. was incorporated in 1994 under Cuban law and became a mixed capital company in 2000, owned 50% by CUBATABACO and 50% by Spanish company ITI CIGARS, S.L.U., a company wholly owned by TABACALERA S.L.U., a company domiciled in Spain.
Corporación Habanos, S.A.
Corporación Habanos, S.A. is a world leader in the commercialization of Premium cigars both in Cuba and in the rest of the world. For this purpose, it has an exclusive distribution network present in the five continents and in more than 140 countries.
Habanos, S.A. commercializes 27 Premium brands Totally handmade and identified as Protected Appellations of Origin (P.A.O.), including Cohiba, Montecristo, Romeo y Julieta, Partagás, Hoyo de Monterrey and H. Upmann, among others. Habanos have been made Totally handmade for more than 500 years and since then they have become a benchmark worldwide.
