STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN — Bottled water giant Groupe Danone SA and Chinese partner Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co. this week began a hearing here to decide who owns the $2.4 billion brand Wahaha, which is used on bottled water, juices and tea, Bloomberg reported on January 6.
The two-year battle for control of the trademark has gone before the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in Sweden. According to Bloomberg, lawyers from firms including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer representing Danone and King & Wood for Wahaha will attend the closed-door hearing, which is expected to take weeks.
Danone, the bottler of Evian, has been involved in more than 30 lawsuits in at least seven countries against Wahaha and its Chinese billionaire chairman Zong Qinghou, according to Bloomberg, which noted that Euromonitor International has reported that the two companies control a combined 16 percent by volume of China’s non-alcoholic drinks market.
The Wahaha trademark now is worth at least $2.4 billion, according to data from Euromonitor, more than 160 times its value when Danone partnered with the Chinese company in 1996, the report said.
To read the full report, click here.
For related information, click here.
Every month in 
