The Cuvee Prestige of Louis Roederer champagne house – Cristal – is officially back on the shelves in Russia – since December 2012. In the beginning of 2012 Louis Roederer lost a case to the major vodka producer in Russia — SoyuzPlodImport (SPI Group), which demanded champagne producers either to pay royalty off Cristal brand usage or leave the Russian market due to the similarities to the major SPI vodka brand – Kristall. SPI lawyers managed to prove in court that the vodka giant had registered its trademark prior to Louis Roederer and that those are too similar and too confusing for the consumers in Russia.

Back then all the professional society – and especially Simple, the official importer and distributor of Roederer champagnes in Russia – argued that this court ruling was unfair and made under influence of the SPI major shareholder – the Russian government. Maxim Kashirin, the owner of Simple, obviously tried several times to force the decision to be reviewed and cancelled – without luck. Simple was prohibited to trade Cristal, while all the other Roederer champagnes could be sold freely.

Some time later Maxim Kashirin realized that not having Cristal in Russia at all is worse than paying royalties to SPI and started private negotiations with SPI without delays on how the situation could be managed to the satisfaction of both sides. Needless to say that Cristal – a historically Russia-related champagne – is in great demand in this country and the sales skyrocketed during 2010-11 sales periods to a big surprise of Louis Roederer who didn’t expect such market performance and had a very limited quota of Cristal for Russia, which is about 11,000 bottles at the moment.

Current agreement is a temporary measure for Cristal. Simple will have to pay undisclosed royalties to SPI until the end of 2013 while trying to find other ways to reach global agreement that will guarantee a stable evolution of the brand in Russia. The amount of paid royalties is not disclosed by neither Kashirin nor SPI.

Some experts believe that the basis for this global “peace agreement” could be withdrawal of Louis Roederer’s court actions in EU where it had been persecuting the Kristall brand.

AM.