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Ten people, including seven former Hermès employees, were sentenced on Thursday in Paris. Prison sentences ranging from six months with probation to three years, including two years in prison, for participating in the manufacture or sale of imitation Birkin bags.
The main defendant, considered to be the protagonist of this underground manufacture, did not appear at the trial. He is the subject of an arrest warrant and is sentenced to three years in prison, in which two are to be served in prison and a €200,000 fine.
One of the other initiators in this case was sentenced to three years in prison, including one year in prison and a fine of 100,000€. One of the other people involved, a woman who sold the fake Birkin bags to Asian buyers, was fined the same amount, as well as 30 months in prison.
The other seven defendants received probationary sentences and fines. Hermès, which had asked for two million euros, will be paid some 580,000€ by the other suspects for moral and material damages to the various entities of the Hermès Group.
Most of the ten defendants had a clean record, and admitted the facts at the trial. They were found guilty of having manufactured replicas of the Birkin model in their homes in 2013 and 2014, the best-selling and most profitable model of the luxury brand Hermès. The price of a new Birkin bag is around 45,000 euros.
“Considering the severity of the sentence,” the lawyer for the principal defendant said he has “no choice but to appeal. “The fight against counterfeiting If it is “legitimate”, “it cannot be done to the detriment of fundamental rights”, added Alexandre Lazarègue, considering that legislation in this area presents a “risk of arbitrariness”.
Read also > COUNTERFEITING CASE AT HERMÈS: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ?
Featured photo: © Nicolas Roger[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
