Christian Louboutin is suing a former employee it says sold stolen and infringing sample shoe products and leather goods that featured Louboutin’s trademarks.
According to the lawsuit, which was filed last week in a U.S. court for the Southern District of New York, defendant Mehdi Mohamed Nasrallah stole or obtained thousands of dollars worth of stolen sample Louboutin products from France during his tenure as an employee for the brand there and subsequently sold them via social media. This, Louboutin alleges, infringed on the brand’s trademarks, represented unfair competition and conversion and violated the defendant’s employment agreement.
The suit claimed that after working for Christian Louboutin Boutiques France, Nasrallah was transferred to the Christian Louboutin Madison Avenue store in New York in December 2022, where he worked as an assistant boutique manager. The alleged illicit activities, including stealing sample products and shipping them to the U.S. to sell, allegedly began when Nasrallah was in France and continued when he came to New York until he was fired for these alleged activities.
Louboutin also claimed that Nasrallah and an accomplice advertised these infringing products for sale in a Facebook group titled “Christian Louboutin VIP Buy/Sell.”
According to Louboutin, “the infringing products were samples, not intended for sale, and were not subjected to plaintiffs’ [quality assurance/quality control] procedures utilized for goods that are intended for sale.”
“The infringing products are likely to deceive, confuse and mislead purchasers and potential purchasers into believing that such unlicensed goods were authorized for sale and backed by plaintiffs, which they are not,” the suit claimed.
WWD’s sister publication FN has reached out to Christian Louboutin and Nasrallah for comment.
Louboutin is seeking monetary damages as well as a preliminary and permanent injunction to prevent Nasrallah from continuing to profit off the stolen merchandise and infringing products.
This filing marks the latest legal battle for Louboutin. Meta and Christian Louboutin joined forces in November and filed a joint lawsuit against an individual allegedly running a counterfeiting operation from Mexico. The suit alleged that Cesar Octavio Guerrero Alejo violated Meta’s terms of service and Instagram’s terms of use and infringed Christian Louboutin’s intellectual property rights by using Facebook and Instagram accounts to promote the sale of counterfeit Christian Louboutin products.
In May, Louboutin filed a lawsuit against Vinci Leather for allegedly infringing upon the French luxury label’s famous shoe designs.
