In a recent judgment from the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court on trade mark infringement, Georgia Aldridge, a social media influencer, has been ordered to pay £213,000 in damages for selling counterfeit goods.  

Setting the scene: Five luxury brands, a counterfeiter and missing documents 

The claimants are a fashion power group; Fendi Italia SRL, Loewe S.A, Christian Dior Couture S.A and Celine S.A, and their parent company, LMVH Moët Hennesy Louis Vuitton SE. Judgment was granted in their favour in January 2025. The defendants, Ms Aldridge and her company Rolo Fashion Limited, were found liable for trade mark infringement for selling counterfeit luxury goods bearing the claimants' trade marks. This decision was to determine the level of damages they must pay the claimants.

At multiple points the defendants were ordered to provide evidence relating to their sales, to assist the judge with calculating the damages. For example, they were required to disclose their bank statements, supplier details and invoices for the counterfeit sales made. However, the defendants' disclosure of these was incomplete and inconsistent. Ms Aldridge perhaps hoped that providing minimal evidence would reduce the damages she would have to pay. In fact, the judge noted that she should not benefit from her failure to properly engage with the disclosure process. 

The legal framework: Lost profits and the "User Principle"

The claimants argued they had suffered three types of damage: reputational harm, lost profits from lost sales and lost licensing income, with the latter two put as alternatives. The judge, referring to case law, confirmed there was no dispute on the general legal principles governing damages in intellectual property cases. The judge also confirmed the established position that a claimant can recover lost profits on sales it would have made but for the infringement.

Where a claimant may not be able to show that the infringement caused lost sales, they may ask for a remedy through the "user principle".  This allocates a reasonable royalty on sales where there is no lost profit to the claimant. In a previous case, there were reservations about whether this principle can apply in trade mark infringement cases, particularly where a mark was not available for licence. But the judge held here that where a customer would never have bought from the trade mark owner, but bought from the infringer instead, some means must still be found to compensate for the damage from that infringement. As such, he confirmed the "user principle" is available in trade mark infringement cases and could be used here. 

Crunching the numbers

The claimants' evidence was a witness statement from Nicolas Lambert, Head of Online Brand Protection for LMVH Moët Hennesy Louis Vuitton SE. He provided helpful, detailed calculations on average sales and average profits from the claimants. On loss of profits, he calculated an average profit of £285.63 per genuine sale, which the judge rounded down to £280. 

Using Ms Alridge's limited bank statement evidence, the judge calculated 4,752 total infringing sales. The judge then applied a 15% substitution rate, (the percentage of sales made by the defendants which caused a lost sale to the claimants), producing 713 lost sales. This resulted in a total loss of profits of £199,640, rounded up to £200,000. 

That left 4,039 sales which did not deprive the claimants of a sale. The judge applied the user principle for these. In the absence of any evidence from either side on an appropriate royalty rate, he assumed a "bare minimum" royalty of 3% of the defendants' £110 average selling price, producing a total royalty of £13,328.70, rounded down to £13,000. 

The total award of £200,000 for lost profits plus £13,000 under the user principle, came to £213,000 in damages.

Where the claim fell short: reputational damage and 'additional damages'

The claim for reputational damage, by contrast, failed entirely. The judge found Mr Lambert's evidence on this speculative. He held that purchasers understood they were buying counterfeits rather than genuine goods and rejected the dilution and tarnishment arguments due to lack of evidence. A further claim for additional damages under Regulation 3 of the Intellectual Property (Enforcement, etc.) Regulations 2006, for knowing and deliberate infringements, was also refused. This largely duplicated the rejected reputational damages plea and the unfair-profits point was insufficiently argued. 

Practical takeaways for brand enforcement 

• While neither side's substitution rate evidence was perfect, the judge still fixed a figure in a way that acknowledged the claimants' helpful and detailed figures and took into account the defendants' inadequate disclosure.
• The "user principle" is available in trade mark cases for infringing sales that cannot be shown to have displaced a genuine sale, even without direct evidence of a licensing practice. Here the court will assume a modest minimum royalty, rather than awarding nothing.
• General vague assertions about dilution, tarnishment or consumer confusion will not succeed in a claim without specific evidence tailored to these claims.