Lifestyle Equities CV and anor v Ahmed and anor [2024] UKSC 17

The Supreme Court has upheld the Appellant’s (Ahmed and anor) appeal and dismissed the Respondent’s (Lifestyle Equities) cross-appeal.

Importantly, the Supreme Court reinstated the law on accessory liability– which will be the focus of this blog.

Supreme Court Decision

The Supreme Court answered the following questions on accessory liability:

1. When are directors of a company liable as accessories for causing the company to commit a tort of strict liability – in this case, trade mark infringement?

2. In particular, is such liability also strict or does it depend on knowledge (or some other mental element)?

It was held that where a director is accused of being liable as an accessory, it will need to be shown that the director had knowledge of the essential facts of the underlying tort. In this case, despite trade mark infringement being a tort of strict liability (i.e., no knowledge requirement) it was still held that knowledge of the essential facts is required.

In short, the relevant test is that to be liable as an accessory for procuring the tort, the director must know the essential facts which make the act wrongful – regardless of whether the tort is one of strict liability.

The Supreme Court further explained that in a case involving counterfeit goods, it will be obvious that a director who arranged for the manufacture and sale of the goods must have known the facts which made the company’s acts infringements of the trade mark.

Briffa comment

The case is interesting from a legal perspective, as it makes clear that where a rightsholder attempts to hold a director jointly and severally liable for acts of trade mark infringement – it will have to show that the director had knowledge of the essential facts which made those activities infringing. However, for cases involving counterfeit goods, the added knowledge requirement should not pose a hurdle considering that the nature of the goods mean the director would have known that the acts were infringing.

The litigation landscape for trade marks is rapidly evolving and is one that Briffa is well placed to assist with, having assisted clients in the trade mark litigation space for over 25 years.