HP-2020-000016 - [2025] EWHC 1451 (Ch)

On 24 May 2017 Mr Laughton emailed Ms White asking “On another note I assume you’re not going to be selling Worldeez?” Ms White replied “Where has that come from?” Mr Laughton responded “Saw the youtube video and we are protecting our L.O.L IP – all other retailers are not supporting but I thought perhaps because of your relationship with Marc [Sivner] that perhaps you may.” Ms White then asked whether she could buy LOL from MGA, saying that she was “still keen to buy but you said you couldn’t get stock”. Mr Laughton responded confirming that he did not have enough stock to meet his current orders. As discussed below, B&M went on to launch the Worldeez range in its stores in July 2017.

Mr Laughton’s evidence was the retailers he had contacted by telephone on 23 or 24 May 2017 included Argos and Tesco, and that they had agreed not to take the Worldeez globe: see §§136–137 above. When cross-examined, Mr Laughton indicated that he had also telephoned Sainsbury’s and Asda. On 25 May Mr Sivner told the Cabo founders in a Whatsapp message that “Argos will take when you get a letter”, i.e. a letter confirming that Worldeez did not infringe MGA’s IP rights. In a later WhatsApp message on 18 August Mr Sivner reported that “Tesco love it” but would not take the globe “because of lol”. These reports from Mr Sivner were not entirely consistent with the evidence set out at §103 above, indicating that even prior to MGA’s intervention Tesco and Argos were not interested in stocking Worldeez.

There is one contemporaneous message indicating that Hamleys declined to stock Worldeez “because of LOL”, but there is no evidence that MGA ever contacted Hamleys. In the circumstances I do not make any findings of threats by MGA to Hamleys.