Thom Browne filed an opposition to Adidas’ request for a new U.S. trial in the trademark infringement case between the two companies, according to court documents filed last week.
Adidas requested the new trial last month after a jury found Zegna Group-owned Thom Browne not liable for the claims.
An attorney for Adidas claimed Thom Browne had withheld emails as evidence in the U.S. trial that could be relevant to the issue of “whether Thom Browne was aware that the use of the stripe designs on activewear” could create confusion with Adidas’ three-stripe design.
The new trial request centered on four emails from Thom Browne employees that surfaced during similar litigation between the two companies in the U.K., but which weren’t included in the U.S. trial documents. The emails are related to Thom Browne’s sponsorship of the FC Barcelona soccer team and the display of four-bar stripes on clothing racks in retail stores in Asia, per the documents.
Thom Browne lawyers say the company used an international e-discovery vendor to collect the documents for the initial trial, and the four emails in question were among 1.4 million documents collected. However, they were not included in the documents presented in the case, and attorneys for Thom Browne haven’t been able to identify why they weren’t included.
“Thom Browne did not withhold the Four Emails from production with the intent of concealing documents from adidas,” Thom Browne’s lawyer stated in the opposition. “We used our best efforts, in good faith, to ensure that our discovery obligations were met.”
Adidas filed the original complaint against Thom Browne in 2021, alleging that the brand sold athletic footwear and apparel with designs that were “confusingly similar” to Adidas’ products because of their four parallel stripes.
A spokesperson for Thom Browne didn’t immediately respond to Fashion Dive’s request for comment. At the time of Adidas’s request for a new trial, a spokesperson for Thom Browne told Fashion Dive that the emails referenced in the complaint weren’t intentionally withheld and “have nothing to do with the issues decided by the jury.”
Adidas declined to comment.
Thom Browne represented 74 million euros, or about $79.4 million at current exchange rates, of Zegna’s third quarter revenue, a 6.3% increase from the same time period last year. The Zegna Group, which also includes Zegna and Tom Ford Fashion, reported 431 million euros for the quarter.
Adidas, meanwhile, is involved in a class-action lawsuit from shareholders over its partnership with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. That case recently was revised to include an additional focus on the company’s alleged failure to meet non-financial reporting requirements over Ye’s offensive comments.
Adidas recently reported revenues of 5.9 billion euros during the third quarter of 2023.
