HP Sues Counterfeiter

Hewlett Packard is suing a distributor for selling fake HP cartridges in South Africa.

According to mmegi.bw, HP claims Gabriel Kanjabanga (pictured), owner of Longhurst Holdings in Botswana, South Africa, allegedly sold counterfeit products branded with an HP logo,

The case went before the Gaborone High Court on September 7, 2015 and Kanjabanga defended himself before the Court.

HP engaged Chasewaterford, a counterfeit goods investigation company in South Africa, to carry out investigations against LongHurst. HP alleges that ink cartridges and toners, seized from Kanjabanga’s company, were counterfeit.

Court documents provided to RT Media state “The company was selling the products at a greatly reduced price, which aroused suspicions that the goods may be counterfeit, and in April 2013, we engaged Owen Mclntyre from Chasewaterford to conduct a test purchase to establish the product’s legitimacy.”

Mclntyre identified the two HP toner cartridges purchased from LongHurst to be counterfeit and reported the case to the criminal investigations department.

The court papers also state: “The findings were reported to the Deputy Director of Criminal Investigations Department. The findings were that the security label floating characters of a ‘tick and Ok’ did not move.  All HP products have the two security features and they move in opposite directions when moved and examined closely.”

The investigators also allege the security labels on the two toners purchased were not properly glued to the toner box and were loose, while HP argued that their genuine goods would not have loose security labels.

HP also stated that the United Nations office in Botswana sued a company called Litco, who claimed they bought the products from Longhurst Holdings.

In his defense, Kanjabanga claims that he believed the goods to be genuine as he purchased the products from suppliers in Hong Kong and Dubai. On that basis Kanjabanga filed a complaint against Chasewaterford for unlawful seizure of goods.

However, the court issued an order permitting the investigation company the right to seize the goods from Longhurst for further investigations.  The case continues.

You’re Welcome to Contact Us！
You can provide opinions and comments on this story!
Or you can send us your own story!
Please contact Violien Wu, Head of News & Editorial, via violien.wu@iRecyclingTimes.com