A subsidiary of Tiffany & Co., the luxury American multinational jewelry corporation is suing Costco Wholesale Corp over counterfeit engagement rings that are wrongly labeled in their stores. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in New York on Thursday.
The crux of the suit alleges trademark infringement, counterfeiting, unfair competition, injury to business reputation, false advertising and deceptive business practices. The lawsuit charges the wholesale company for selling engagement rings with to customers with the assumption that are buying Tiffany rings.
"We now know that there are at least hundreds if not thousands of Costco members who think they bought a Tiffany engagement ring at Costco, which they didn't," Jeffrey Mitchell, Tiffany's counsel in the case, said in a statement. "Costco knew what it was doing when it used the Tiffany trademark to sell rings that had nothing to do with Tiffany. This is not the kind of behavior people expect from a company like Costco, and this case will shed a much needed light on this outrageous behavior."
A representative for Costco Wholesale Corp. in Issaquah, Washington could not be reached immediately for comment. Costco is the world's largest wholesale club operator with more than 600 sites worldwide.
Tiffany and Co. launched an investigation and said that it learned that Costco began selling different types of rings for years, fooling customers into buying "Tiffany" rings, without the company's knowledge. The jewelry retailer alleges customers were meant to believe they were buying authentic Tiffany products at significant discount prices.
