LVMH Countersuing Hermès

The fashion law world is on fire this week. In our previous post, we covered Hermès International's annoucement about filing a claim against LVMH in July for insider trading. Yesterday, LVMH responded to the announcement by revealing it will file a suit against Hermès for “slander, blackmail and unfair competition.” LVMH went on to state that “[b]y filing its complaint, Hermès seeks to bypass the appropriate AMF channels without waiting for the result of the official enquiry [sic] and without determining the extent of the AMF’s findings to date. In addition, the filing carries serious and unfounded accusations about market failings."

AMF is the official stock market regulator and in November 2010, it launched an investigation to determine if LVMH respected market rules. The investigation is still ongoing. The luxury conglomerate said it awaited the results of the probe “with complete peace of mind” and was confident the AMF would find it did no wrong. LVMH stated that it “ has no doubt that the inquiry will determine that the Hermès allegations are false and serve no other purpose than to slander and unlawfully undermine another firm in the same industry."