Makita Wins RUB 300 Million Landmark Award in Counterfeiting Case Against Ozon Seller

On 16 March 2026, the Moscow Arbitrazh Court issued its ruling in case No. А40-282612/24-110-2109, ordering an individual entrepreneur to pay Makita Corporation — the Japanese professional power tools manufacturer — a compensation of RUB 300,000,000.

Background

Makita's representatives identified listings for goods bearing the MAKITA trademark on the Ozon marketplace, placed by a seller trading as "Opt_Beri" — individual entrepreneur Vera Pirozhok. A test purchase of an N1900B electric planer confirmed the counterfeit nature of the goods: the tool lacked the mandatory EAC certification mark, a production date, a serial number, Russian-language labelling, and a certificate of conformity.

According to fiscal data operator LLC "Peter-Service Spetstehnologii", the defendant sold a total of 38,781 units of goods bearing the MAKITA mark between February 2023 and January 2024 and again in October–December 2025. The MPSTATS analytics platform recorded total revenue exceeding RUB 103.7 million from those sales.

Compensation was claimed at twice the value of the counterfeit goods under Sub-clause 2, Clause 4, Article 1515 of the Civil Code, yielding a calculated figure of over RUB 687 million. The claimant voluntarily reduced its claim to RUB 300 million. The defendant submitted no counter-calculation and failed to rebut either the unit volumes or the pricing data. The court declined to reduce the award further. In addition to the compensation, the defendant was ordered to reimburse RUB 20,000 in legal costs, and a state duty of RUB 1,955,000 was assessed payable to the federal budget.

Makita's Consistent IP Enforcement Strategy

This case is not an isolated incident but part of Makita Corporation's systematic and well-resourced approach to protecting its intellectual property in Russia. The company methodically monitors the market, documents infringements and pursues litigation regardless of the scale of the infringer. Such resolve deserves recognition: it is precisely this kind of active rights enforcement that shapes court practice, raises the bar for brand protection across the industry, and ultimately shields consumers from unsafe counterfeit products and legitimate traders from unfair competition.

Key Takeaways

The decision illustrates several important trends. First, data from marketplace analytics services such as MPSTATS are increasingly accepted by Russian courts as reliable evidence for calculating compensation. Second, selling counterfeits through online platforms does not guarantee anonymity: aggregated fiscal operator data can reconstruct full sales volumes going back several years. Third, when infringement is large-scale, the resulting compensation may far exceed the infringer's profit, fundamentally altering the risk calculus for those who view counterfeit trade as a viable business model.

The ruling may be appealed to the Ninth Arbitrazh Court of Appeal within one month.

Source: kad.arbitr.ru