The court invalidated the transfer of the Baltika brand to Carlsberg

The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region satisfied the claim of Baltika Brewing Company LLC against the Carlsberg structure – the limited liability partnership Karlsberg Kazakhstan. The court invalidated the deal to transfer an exclusive license to intellectual property to Karlsberg. They write about it “Vedomosti” with reference to the court decision.

The agreement involving the transfer of a license for property related to the Baltika products and brand was concluded on July 19, 2023. Then representatives of Baltika signed an agreement to transfer the rights to the Baltika trademark to various Carlsberg companies in the territories of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Tajikistan, Mongolia and Turkmenistan, including Karlsberg Kazakhstan.

The agreements were signed without the participation of the president of the Russian company, Taimuraz Bolloev. In December last year, the first vice president of the company, Alexander Dedegkaev, drew attention to this fact. In a letter sent to the administration of the President of the Russian Federation, he indicated that the agreements were signed by a person whose powers were terminated at that time. As a result, Carlsberg structures received rights to the Baltika trademarks for 20 years with the possibility of extension.

Alexander Dedegkaev did not specify who exactly signed the agreements. However, in November last year, ex-president of Baltika Denis Sherstennikov and its vice-president Anton Rogachevsky were arrested. As Kommersant reported, they were accused of fraud due to the illegal assignment of rights to part of the company’s brands to foreign structures of the Carlsberg Group. July 16, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree according to which the shares of foreign companies in Baltika passed into the temporary possession of the Federal Property Management Agency.

Read more about the case in the Kommersant article. “‘Baltic’ cannot be poured abroad”.

Lusine Balasyan