Mary Kay Canada Sues Touch of Pink Cosmetics

Mary Kay Cosmetics Ltd., known as Mary Kay Canada, filed suit on February 3, 2009 against Touch of Pink Cosmetics and its owners, Amy and Scott Weber.

According to court documents, Mary Kay Canada filed the lawsuit to “remedy damages caused by Defendants’ unlawful actions in Canada.”

Mary Kay Canada claims it discovered in late 2008 (among other things) that the Defendants were interfering with Mary Kay Canada’s contracts with certain Independent Beauty Consultants (IBCs).

Sound familiar? It’s one of the claims that Mary Kay Inc. is making against the Webers in their lawsuit.

I find it amazing that it took Mary Kay Canada until late 2008 to discover this, given that Mary Kay Inc. had filed a lawsuit against the Webers in May 2008 and had apparently had the Webers on their radar screen well before that.

The Canadian lawsuit is based on trademarks registered in Canada, and therefore requires the interpretation of Canadian law.

The Webers asked for a six month continuance (delay) in their current case with Mary Kay Inc. so that they could have time to defend against both cases. They also argued that the Canadian lawsuit exists ““to intimidate the Webers and increase their cost of defense in an effort to ‘win’ by making it too expensive for the Webers to protect their business.”

The Webers request was denied.

Everything is on track for the Mary Kay Inc. case to go trial in March. We’ll keep you posted.