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Victoria Beckham rushes to shut down fake sales site as her business struggles

Victoria Beckham - Victor Boyko/Getty Images for Dior
Victoria Beckham - Victor Boyko/Getty Images for Dior

In the week Victoria Beckham announced her battle to “future proof” her fashion brand with a range of cut price haute couture, her lawyers were beginning a fight of their very own.

In June, a file of legal papers was lodged with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) complaining that an American businesswoman was cashing in on Posh and Becks’ name with a website selling clothes “at highly discounted prices”.

A cached version of the site, usbeckham.com, under the banner BECKHAM shows lace-up girdles, mesh crop tops, shrug shoulder jumpsuits, and twinkling sequin jackets from as little as $80 (£58).

The official victoriabeckham.com website now has clothing on sale from just £28.30 following Mrs Beckham’s “rebirth” of the company, which is yet to make a profit.

In the Wipo ruling, seen by The Telegraph, the former Spice Girl, 47, and her husband, David, 46, explain how she “achieved celebrity” in the 90’s girl band, while he became the “first English football player to win league titles in four countries (England, Spain, the United States and France).”

The documents include a newspaper article showing Mrs Beckham had been listed by a business magazine as among Britain’s top 100 entrepreneurs.

Her husband had worked with “lifestyle brands”, including “Adidas, Diageo, H&M, L’Oreal, Tudor and Sands” amassing 64 million followers on Instagram.

Consequently, they were a little vexed to see the US website selling clothes under the title “BECKHAM Online Official Boutique” using the “sans-serif font similar to the uppercase sans-serif font used” by Mrs Beckham’s website.

The ruling noted how a link for fragrances opened another website selling perfumes and “fashion items including a swimsuit range under the label Victoria Beck, which is not used by or associated with either” of the Beckhams”.

The lawyers stressed how “Beckham” had been registered as trademarks by both Posh and Becks for a range of items including clothing, fragrances, fashion accessories and goods and services.

Victoria Beckham and David Beckham - Samir Hussein/WireImage
Victoria Beckham and David Beckham - Samir Hussein/WireImage

'Harassment and disruptive'

But, Cynthia Panford, the co-founder of the site who claims she is “inspired by her love for haute couture”, told Wipo lawyers she found their investigation to be both “harassment and disruptive”.

The judgment notes how she described herself on her site as wanting to “create a truly unique experience in luxury online shopping at affordable prices for every woman to look and feel their best self, every products [sic] from www.usbeckham.com is made to instill confidence in you”.

The panel found the American website was confusingly similar to the Beckham trademark, the site owner had “no rights or legitimate interests in the domain name”, and so had registered it in “bad faith”.

The ruling adds: “The Panel finds the Respondent [Ms Panford] registered the disputed domain name to use it in connection with the promotion and sale of fashion products in competition with the Complainants [the Beckhams].

They ordered control of the website be handed over to Mrs Beckham. Ms Panford failed to respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson for Victoria Beckham Limited said: "It is important to us that our brand is protected; we need to ensure our customers can fully trust that the products they purchase are authentic."