Fendi Italia v Rolo Fashion: IPEC awards £213,000 in counterfeit luxury goods damages inquiry

The Intellectual Property Enterprise Court has awarded £213,000 in a damages inquiry against a dropshipping operation selling counterfeit luxury goods, rejecting the quantification advanced by both parties and confirming that the user principle is available in trade mark cases even where the proprietor would never have licensed the mark.

In Fendi Italia Srl and others v Rolo Fashion Limited and another [2026] EWHC 1703 (IPEC), handed down remotely on 9 July 2026, His Honour Judge Hacon determined the inquiry on the papers. Richard Ferguson of Stobbs (IP) Limited made written submissions for the claimants, with Richardson Lissack Limited acting for the defendants.

Background

Judgement in default was entered in January 2025 against Rolo Fashion Limited and Georgia Aldridge, jointly liable and additionally liable as a sole trader for the period preceding incorporation. An ex parte freezing injunction had been granted in September 2024.

Disclosure proved contentious. The defendants served an affidavit with AliExpress transaction records and, following informal Part 18 requests, a plain-text WhatsApp export excluding images. Nothing was produced concerning DHgate, the 55 PayPal payments to an entity identified as Xu Qiu Ping, or two Instagram accounts alleged to have been used to offer infringing goods. Ms Aldridge explained that her phone had been stolen and the messages recovered from another device, though the transcript refers to her as "me". The defendants maintained that complaints of incomplete disclosure ought to have been pursued by application for specific disclosure.

Judge Hacon disagreed. The disclosure order was reasonably straightforward, and it was not clear that Ms Aldridge had complied as she could and should have done, notwithstanding that she was then acting in person.

Quantification

The claimants' evidence came from Nicolas Lambert, Head of Online Brand Protection at LVMH. He identified 1,311 members of the WhatsApp group and assumed each had purchased at least one item, producing 77.12 sales per month across a 72 month limitation period and a total of 5,552 infringing sales. Applying substitution rates of 10, 20 or 30 per cent against an average claimant profit of £285.63 per item, he arrived at lost profits between £158,524.65 and £475,859.58.

The judge declined to accept the central assumption. No basis had been provided for supposing every group member bought a product, and it was for the claimants to support that plank of their case. Nor did he accept Ms Aldridge's unquantified assertion that very few had done so.

Ms Aldridge's own method, dividing disclosed Monzo income by an average price, had a sound basis in principle, though she had relied on a single account without explanation and had used the claimants' average retail price of £751.67 rather than the defendants' average price of £110. Substituting the latter produced roughly 66 sales per month, or 4,752 across the period. Finding no warrant for presumptions in the defendants' favour given their probable disclosure failures, but no basis for a high substitution rate either, the judge settled on 15 per cent. That yielded around 713 lost sales and, at approximately £280 profit per item, £200,000.

User principle and reputation

The remaining 4,039 sales deprived the claimants of nothing. Reviewing Reed Executive plc v Reed Business Information Ltd [2004] EWCA Civ 159 and National Guild of Removers and Storers Ltd v Jones [2011] EWPCC 4, Judge Hacon held that where a patentee may recover on the user principle even absent any willingness to license, no reason appeared why the position should differ for trade marks. The unchallenged pleading of section 10(3) infringement meant the claimants were entitled to compensation for unfair advantage taken of the marks' distinctive character or repute. Absent evidence supporting any royalty, he assumed a bare minimum of three per cent of the defendants' selling price, giving £13,000.

The reputational damage claim failed. Mr Lambert's evidence was speculative and unsupported. Prices averaging under 15 per cent of the genuine article would deceive only a naïve consumer, and purchasers plainly understood they were buying counterfeits rather than goods sourced from a claimant. Neither dilution through post-sale confusion nor tarnishment was made out.

No further award was made under regulation 3 of the Intellectual Property (Enforcement, etc.) Regulations 2006. The claim for unfair profits, if that is what was intended, would require fuller argument.