The North Face has been awarded a million-dollar judgment by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Nabil Saleh, Ibrahim Saleh and Toufic Saleh, who formed and operated a complicated counterfeiting operation that sold jackets bearing The North Face trademarks to wholesalers and retailers throughout New York City and the rest of the United States. The trio conducted business through a variety of corporate aliases, including #1 Spot of NY, Broadway Outlet, TriStar Wholesale, F&H Fabric Enterprise, and BARE USA.

In addition to these wholesale and close-out aliases, the Saleh’s sold counterfeited TNF merchandise to several independent retailers, including Classic Closeouts, aka Internet Value Group, a Cedarhurst, New York company with an online retail store at www.classiccloseouts.com; deal.com, a Wisconsin-based online auction site; and several other retailers-all of which sold product believed to have originated with the Salehs. TNF had earlier obtained permanent injunctions and money damages of more than $40,000 from many of these retailers.

The North Face first learned of the Salehs' counterfeiting operations late in 2003 while investigating the source of counterfeit jackets bearing TNF trademarks. TNF first discovered the counterfeit products at multiple locations of the Reliance Department store chain in New York City right before Thanksgiving of that year. The company was able to seize many of these fake products thanks to a federal court order obtained by the legal department of TNF’s parent company, VF Corp.

The North Face's investigation led to the discovery and confiscation of thousands of additional counterfeit jackets from the Salehs' and the retailers who bought product from their operation. VF Corp.’s legal team quickly obtained preliminary injunctions against the Salehs and then moved for summary judgment on its claims for trademark counterfeiting and infringement. Judge Barbara S. Jones of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York granted The North Face's motion for summary judgment, awarding The North Face a $1,000,000 judgment, plus attorneys' fees, against the Salehs, against whom the Court also entered a permanent injunction. TNF’s counsel had obtained an order freezing certain of the Salehs' bank accounts much earlier in the litigation process and those proceeds will now go to satisfy the judgment.