32,760 tins of shoe polish bearing Kime trademark, impounded by Customs at Malta Freeport, are to be destroyed after a court established a breach of intellectual property rights.
The shoe polish was found in a container on March 2012 at Malta Freeport with the Director General of Customs withholding its release. Samples examined by an expert of S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. in Holland, owners of the Kiwi brand of shoe polish, established that the shoe polish was counterfeit.
The court was told that the tins were being shipped under the name of Kime but packaged in the same way as Kiwi products.
The court upheld pleas by S.C. Johnson & Son Inc. that the imported tins were counterfeit and packaged in a way which was meant to cause confusion with the genuine Kiwi product. It therefore ordered their destruction within 90 days.