Fraudsters sentenced to prison for sending misleading trademark invoices

On 20 December 2017, the Court of Appeal in Sweden sentenced some of the scammers from the Uppsala trademark scam case to serve a prison sentence. They were found guilty of fraud for sending misleading invoices to EU trademark owners using the name “OMIH” on the letterhead.

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The Uppsala trademark case involves more than 20 persons. They were sending fraudulent invoices to EU trademark holders using the letterhead “OMIH”.  Many of the recipients made the payments, convinced that the invoices were sent by the real EU Trademark Office OHIM (now EUIPO).

In the criminal trial, the first instance found some of the involved fraudsters guilty for attempted fraud and gave them prison sentences. Against this decision, the Swedish prosecutor appealed to the Court of Appeal. On 20 December 2017, the Court changed the criminal classification for the two ringleaders from attempted fraud to complete gross fraud.  

The Court also approved the claims for damages for those aggrieved ones, who had made the payments on the basis of the fraudulent invoices.

To gain a better insight on this topic, read the summary of the judgment written by the EUIPO here.