Cartier X Tiffany & Co. lawsuit drama: 5 things to know

Cartier and Tiffany in a lawsuit battle (Image via Cartier/youtube/ lvmh.com/floridasupremecourt/LinkedIn)

Two of the most luxurious jewelry brands, Cartier and Tiffany & Co., are in a legal battle after the former filed a lawsuit against Tiffany.

On Tuesday, March 1, 2022, Cartier took to the New York State Court in Manhattan, accusing Tiffany & Co. of stealing trade secrets.

The drama of the lawsuit between the two most well-known jewelry brands is certainly something that will shake luxury jewelry enthusiasts to the core, so here are five things you need to know about the issue.

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Five interesting things to know about the lawsuit drama between Tiffany & Co. and Cartier

1) According to Cartier, an employee was lured away

According to the complaint filed by Cartier, Tiffany & Co. hired a junior manager, Megan Marino, who was underqualified, just to learn more about Cartier’s jewelry collection, High Jewelry.

According to the complaint, Tiffany & Co. later fired Megan after five weeks by pinning all the blame on her. Cartier also added that Tiffany hired Megan, a former executive worker for Cartier, to work despite her six-month non-compete agreement.

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2) A battle of High Jewelry collection

Cartier accused Tiffany of stealing trade secrets regarding the High Jewelry collection of the label. This collection contains pieces which cost between $50,000 to $10 million.

Tiffany was accused of hiring Megan as an executive worker for their high Jewelry project, called the Blue Book, to revive their own disarrayed high jewelry unit.

The complaint filed by Cartier read,

"[This is a] disturbing culture of misappropriating competitive information"

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3) Marino blames Tiffany too

According to the lawsuit, Tiffany fired Megan Marino five weeks after the hiring, and ultimately planned to put the blame on her.

Marino also wrote an affidavit accompanying the complaint in which she says,

"[Tiffany was] more interested in hiring me as a source of information than as a High Jewelry manager."

In the affidavit, Marino admitted to forwarding confidential information from Cartier to her personal email account, including internal presentations and pricing information about the High Jewelry collection. She later admitted that the information was given to Tiffany & Co..

Marino also said that she was offered a 30% raise when she switched her job from Cartier to Tiffany & Co., despite her lack of experience.

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4) Tiffany & Co. dismiss all the allegations

Cartier sets out claims of breach of loyalty, breach of contract against Megan Marino individually, and interference with business relations against Tiffany. Meanwhile, both are being sued for trade secret misappropriation.

According to Reuters, Tiffany denied all the accusations and said,

"We deny the baseless allegations and will vigourously defend ourselves."

The lawsuit seeks preliminary and permanent injunctive relief that requires Tiffany and Marino to return and refrain from using any of the allegedly misapproriated trade secrets.

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5) Previous legal cases between two brands

Cartier v/s Tiffany in previous lawsuits (Image via tiffany.com/worldoftiffany/ Cartier/Youtube)

This isn't the first case of trade secret misappropriation between Cartier and Tiffany. Back in 2014, Cartier filed a similar suit against Tiffany and a former advert employee. The employee plotted to misappropriate Cartier's confidential information after joining Tiffany. The case was settled within a year and dismissed on the ground that no information was ultimately used or obtained by the label.