Vorys eControl Practice Featured in Columbus CEO Story Titled “Controlling Counterfeiting, Unauthorized Sales the Goal for New Vorys Practice”
The growing Vorys eControl practice was featured in an article in the November 2019 edition of Columbus CEO titled “Controlling Counterfeiting, Unauthorized Sales the Goal for New Vorys Practice.”
The story states:
“A few years ago, a consumer who went online to buy her favorite flavor of Yogi Tea on a marketplace like Amazon.com had a chance of receiving a product from a third-party seller that was either expired, not packaged properly or suffering from water damage because it wasn’t elevated off a warehouse floor.
Or, in some cases, all of the above.
That lack of quality control, usually the result of practices by an unauthorized seller, prompted the Oregon herbal tea company to turn to a Columbus law firm to help it come up with a plan to have more command of its brand. It needed a legal strategy to keep the tea out of the wrong sellers’ hands and establish quality standards for authorized sellers. The effort paid off.
‘We have much less of a gray market of unauthorized sellers than we did 18 months ago,’ says Robin Gabel, a national account manager at East West Tea Co., the maker of Yogi Tea. ‘What that allows us to do as a business is to lean in to our authorized partners and channels and allow them to be more competitive and successful while preserving the customer experience.’”
The story also states:
“To help its clients gain more control of the process, the eControl group uses intellectual property, distribution, consumer, competition and litigation law combined with cyber investigations, data and analytics and channel management consulting. The team has 50 members across several offices who have worked with hundreds of brands across just about every product vertical.
‘When products are able to be taken out of authorized distribution channels, the brands lose the ability to maintain quality oversight,’ says Daren Garcia, a Vorys partner and member of the eControl team. ‘Poor quality creates problems for brands ... so just about every manufacturer is evaluating today, ‘How do I step in and assert better control over my distribution networks and over who is able to resell my product?’ They want to do so in a way that’s going to preserve the (brand) value that they’ve worked so hard to build up.’
Brands spend millions of dollars and years of work building up their name, yet in seconds their reputation can be tarnished by bad online reviews or counterfeit products. Unauthorized sales channels also can lead to consumers receiving products that may be used but had been marketed as new.”
To read the entire story, click here.
