Retail

Squire Sanders has long been a leader in providing legal services to retailers and the designers and producers of consumer products, helping a broad range of clients capitalize on opportunities and handle the challenges of a competitive and volatile global business environment. Consumer products companies and retailers around the world look to us for creative, practical and commercially driven legal solutions and our global footprint, integrated approach and broad range of legal services enable us to support them whenever and wherever they need us.

We are proud to serve clients as varied as fashion houses, manufacturers, distributors, trading companies, department stores, single-brand and specialty stores, e-commerce outlets and grocery chains.

We help clients commercially exploit products in traditional and new media, and manage the unique complexities and culture of their business. Our long experience and breadth of practice allow us to provide top-quality service on issues including:

Advertising, branding, sponsorship and marketing Business contracts Commercial matters Corporate transactions, finance and governance Employee benefits Employment litigation and effective management of employees Environmental, health and safety Executive compensation Government relations and public advocacy Intellectual property protection, including patent planning and prosecution, portfolio management, licensing, infringement and dilution, and anticounterfeiting International and commercial arbitration and cross-border dispute resolution

International investment International trade, customs and market access Litigation and alternative dispute resolution including dealer and franchise disputes, product liability and unfair competition cases Mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and other strategic transactions Real estate and property matters, including sale of retail premises, estate management, real estate finance and secured lending Regulatory matters Restructuring, creditors’ rights and bankruptcy Taxation

We have the comprehensive experience needed to understand the legal dynamics of the countries in which we practice in light of our clients’ specific business goals and presence in those markets.

A Track Record of Success

A dynamic company needs dynamic counsel to stay competitive and lead the way around the world. Whether you are looking to adopt new technologies, review the structure of the business or its employees, sell underperforming businesses or assets, or form joint ventures in new areas or across jurisdictions, we can help you surpass your goals and exceed your expectations. We provide seamless, efficient and cost-effective service of the highest quality. Our high-level understanding of the issues our clients face ensures a solution-driven approach focused on enhancing profitability and adding value that is delivered in an easy-to-understand and practical way.

Representative Experience

• Representing the US operations of Europe-based consumer product conglomerate Electrolux Home Products, Inc. in various restructuring and bankruptcy matters involving suppliers.
• Representing a food and automotive manufacturing conglomerate in a variety of union issues including strike issues at various subsidiaries and facilities, union relations issues regarding the sale of a subsidiary and related facilities, union issues regarding grievances and general contract interpretation issues, and assessment of potential arbitrators for various arbitrations.
• Obtaining summary judgment on behalf of a leading Italian fashion house against major discount retail chains for willfully selling counterfeit branded fashion products in their stores throughout the United States. Judicial awards of treble damages, contempt sanctions and permanent injunctions resulted in the entry of permanent injunctions on consent and settlements in the millions of dollars for our client. One public record settlement, in the amount of US$10 million (approximately 100 percent of the treble damages and contempt sanctions awarded on summary judgment) included an enhanced permanent injunction requiring the defendant to file compliance reports with the court every six months for five years. Another public record settlement included a payment to our client of US$2.5 million from the defendant’s bankruptcy estate. In another case, a discount chain settled in an early phase of litigation for a substantial but confidential amount coupled with the entry of a permanent injunction on consent against the sale of products bearing our client’s trademarks without our client’s prior written permission. Litigation continues against a former importer and wholesaler of such goods and its individual shareholders against whom summary judgment has been obtained in the approximate amount of US$11 million for willful counterfeiting.
• Advising the world's leading marketer of branded consumer lawn and garden products on its US$1.7 billion secured revolving credit facility.
• Assisting a global grocery and general merchandising retailer in the preparation of purchase, future purchase and development agreements.
• Representing the developer, a consortium comprised of a national retail chain and other investors, in connection with the issuance by the city of Columbus (Ohio) of US$36.4 million tax-increment financing bonds for an economic development project in Northeast Columbus. The project is an approximately 1,200-acre mixed use development project integrating office, retail and residential development with entertainment and recreation space. The bonds were issued to pay or reimburse the payment of costs of constructing roads and related infrastructure located in or adjacent to the project. We also coordinated the overlay of this tax-increment financing with real property tax abatements on the “nonretail” commercial office portions of the development.
• Representing a national US-based retailer in class action litigation involving allegations that our client misled consumers by designating certain clothes dryers as "stainless steel" when portions of the dryers' drums were not in fact constructed of stainless steel. In 2008 the Seventh Circuit ordered decertification of a class of hundreds of thousands of consumers in 29 different jurisdictions. On remand plaintiff declined our offer of judgment, and the district court subsequently granted our motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The dismissal was affirmed on appeal in 2010. This case is particularly notable because it is perhaps the only case where a party persuaded a district court to dismiss based on an offer of judgment inclusive of attorneys’ fees.
• Representing a food industry association and several of its member companies in litigation claiming that the artificial sweetener brand Splenda used false and misleading advertising to compete unfairly with natural sugar in the marketplace. Our client and other plaintiffs filed suit in US District Court, Central District of California, seeking monetary damages and an injunction to stop the defendants from making certain advertising claims and from misleading consumers to believe that Splenda contained sugar and was natural or more natural than other artificial sweeteners. The lawsuit claimed the marketing campaign for the artificial sweetener constituted false and misleading advertising. According to the lawsuit, the defendants’ false and misleading advertising caused consumers to drop sugar in favor of the artificial sweetener Splenda. The highly-publicized litigation was settled in 2008.
• Representing a major Japan-based confectionery producer in its acquisition of chocolate and sugar confectionary operations in Warsaw from Kraft Foods.
• Counseling the PRC division and consumer industrial group of a major US-based global manufacturer of electrical and other products with regard to the establishment of a new equity joint venture in Zhejiang Province, China to manufacture certain electrical components.