EU Court Rules in Favor of Moroccan Royals in Mandarin Variety Dispute

End of a long legal battle opposing the company Nador Cott Protection belonging to the Moroccan royal family to the company José Cánovas Pardo SL, owned by a farmer based in Murcia, Spain. The latter is accused of cultivating the mandarin called Nadorcott without the consent of the owner. The facts date back to 2006. Pardo began to operate a Nadorcott variety plantation on a plot in the town of Alhama de Murcia (Murcia). The company Gestión de Licencias Vegetales (Geslive) which had managed the rights of the licensed company for Nadorcott mandarins until 2008 had sent formal notices to the Pardo company to stop exploiting this plant variety.

In 2011, the Club de Variedades Vegetales Protegidas which in turn manages the rights of the licensed company for Nadorcott mandarins had requested a preliminary procedure before a court. It is suing the Pardo company for infringement of rights on the Nadorcott variety from February 1996 to the same month in 2006. The club had claimed 35,000 euros (376,332 DH) as compensation. The court of first instance dismissed this claim. In its decision, it explained that the three-year limitation period provided for in the regulation had expired, and that the owner had been aware of the acts of exploitation carried out by the Pardo company at least since October 2007.

The club appeals to the provincial court of Murcia. The latter renders a decision specifying that the limitation period only concerned the acts of exploitation carried out more than three years before the adoption of the preliminary procedure. The Padro company then turns to the Supreme Court to challenge this interpretation. The court decided to refer the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). This court finally ruled in favor of the Nador Cott Protection company. A victory for the Moroccan royal family.

For the record, the Moroccan variety of mandarin called Nadorcott has also been the subject of a legal battle between Nador Cott Protection and researchers from the University of California Riverside. The latter have developed another similar variety of the fruit.