Italy's Ferrero wins battle against fakes in China

HONG KONG, April 9 (Reuters) - Italian confectioner Ferrero has won a five-year battle against a Chinese firm producing fakes of its famous gold-wrapped Ferrero Rocher chocolates in a ruling hailed by upmarket brands, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

China's Supreme People's Court ordered mainland company Montresor to stop making the nutty chocolates and pay "symbolic" damages of 500,000 yuan (US$71,430), the South China Morning Post reported.

"It is already hard for Italian companies, and foreign ones in general, to get into China, overcome resistance put up against foreign products, build up a commercial network and invest in the country, only to be faced with a strong and invisible enemy such as the counterfeiting industry," the newspaper quoted the Italian company as saying.

Ferrero, which had spent more than US$1 million battling counterfeiters, began legal action against the Chinese firm and its identical "Tresor Dore" chocolates in 2003. The chocolates were priced at one-third of the cost of the genuine product.

There are at least 35 chocolate products that look like Ferrero Rocher in supermarkets in China, according to mainland media reports.

Montresor, which was named a prestigious brand in the mainland, has been exporting throughout Southeast Asia since 2000, the newspaper said.

The battle against fakes in China could erode margins for luxury goods makers in the world's fastest-growing major economy, where the nutty chocolates are a popular gift, especially during the Lunar New Year. (US$1=HK$7.8=7.00 yuan) (Reporting by Donny Kwok; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree)