The Ban on the Café Crème Brand Name in France Has Been Lifted
18 July 2017 - 3:04AM
COMPANY
ANNOUNCEMENT
No. 22/2017
Copenhagen, 17 July 2017
The Ban on the Café Crème Brand
Name in France Has Been Lifted
The French Ministry of Health and Ministry of
Budget have issued an official notice annulling the ban
issued in February 2017 against several brand names for tobacco
products, including the Scandinavian Tobacco Group brand names Café
Crème and Paradise (cf. company announcements 3/2017 and
4/2017). The ban was supposed to take effect in February
2018.
The background for the annulment is a decision by the Conseil
d'État (the French supreme administrative court) in a case not
involving Scandinavian Tobacco Group. The French court set aside
the provision in French law which let the authorities declare
brands non-compliant with the law as part of a general process for
the approval of product prices.
The Conseil d'État in the relevant case also
decided to ask the EU Court of Justice about the application of
article 13 in the EU Tobacco Products Directive to established
trademarks, and whether an application of the article to trademarks
respects the property right, the freedom of expression, the freedom
to conduct a business and the principles of proportionality and
legal certainty. Article 13, as implemented in French law, is the
provision which was used to ban Café Crème and Paradise. The
EU Court of Justice on average takes 15 months to answer questions
referred to it by the national courts.
Scandinavian Tobacco Group expects the case, which it raised before
the Conseil d'État in defense of its Café Crème brand name, to be
closed by the court, as the brand is no longer banned.
For further information, please
contact:
For media enquiries:
Kaspar Bach Habersaat, Director of Group Communications, phone: +45
7220 7152
or kaspar.bach@st-group.com.
For investor enquiries:
Torben Sand, Head of Investor Relations, phone: +45 7220 7126 or
torben.sand@st-group.com.
About
Scandinavian Tobacco Group
Scandinavian Tobacco
Group A/S with its subsidiaries (the "Group")
is a world leading producer of cigars and traditional pipe tobacco.
The Group also produces fine-cut tobacco and sells tobacco-related
accessories. The Group produces and sells 3 billion cigars and
5,000 tonnes of pipe and fine-cut tobacco annually. Scandinavian
Tobacco Group believes it is the only company globally with a core
strategic focus on production and distribution in all of these
tobacco categories.
Scandinavian Tobacco
Group holds market-leading positions in the machine-made cigar
market in Europe, the handmade cigar market in the US, the online
and catalogue retail sales of cigars in the US, the traditional
pipe tobacco market globally and in selected fine-cut tobacco
markets.
Scandinavian Tobacco
Group has a diversified portfolio of more than 200 brands providing
a complementary range of established global brands and local
champions. In the cigar segment, the brand portfolio comprises Café
Crème, La Paz, Macanudo, CAO, Partagas (US) and Cohiba (US). Pipe
tobacco brands include Captain Black, Erinmore, Borkum Riff and
W.Ø. Larsen, while leading fine-cut tobacco brands include Bugler,
Break, Escort, Bali Shag and Tiedemanns.
As at 31 December 2016,
the Group employed 7,600 people in the Dominican Republic,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Indonesia, Europe, New Zealand, Australia,
Canada and the US.
For more information
please visit www.st-group.com.
Scandinavian Tobacco
Group A/S
Sydmarken 42
DK-2860 Søborg
Denmark
CVR 31
08 01 85
Scandinavian Tobacco Group, CC ban
in France lifted, 17 July '17
This
announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf
of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.
The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely
responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the
information contained therein.
Source: Scandinavian Tobacco Group A/S via
Globenewswire
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