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

Following MGA’s intervention, as set out above, The Entertainer cancelled the initial order it had placed for the Worldeez globe. TRU and Smyths likewise did not place any orders for the launch of the globe. The various planned meet and greets with Tiana at the stores of all three retailers were cancelled.

As an immediate measure, to try and launch the product in a form to which MGA would not take objection, Cabo repackaged some of the globes as blind bags. The Entertainer purchased a small number of those, along with some of the 5- and 10- pack products, and a video was later filmed with Tiana at The Entertainer’s Birmingham store to promote the Worldeez blind bags. Meanwhile Cabo redesigned the packaging of the Worldeez globe by replacing its blue plastic design with a white plastic design, and removing the image of the “Bella” figurine, as shown below.

The new design was sent to the Chinese factory on 2 June 2017, and existing stock in the UK was rewrapped at a local factory. This was all done before the product was launched, such that no globes in the original blue wrapper were ever marketed. That did not, however, cause MGA to lift its objections to the Worldeez globe: as described above, even in September 2017 Mr Laughton was making clear to The Entertainer that LOL would not be supplied if The Entertainer stocked the Worldeez globe. None of The Entertainer, TRU and Smyths ultimately stocked the Worldeez globe, even in its repackaged form. Nor did TRU or Smyths ever order any of the other Worldeez range (i.e. the blind bags or 5- and 10-packs). The Entertainer ultimately only ordered very small quantities of Worldeez.

The Second Claimant, The Licensing World (TLW), was incorporated on 30 May 2017, with the same shareholders as Cabo. An assignment agreement transferred to it Cabo’s goodwill and Worldeez trademarks for the sum of £1. This appears to have been done in an attempt to protect any Worldeez intellectual property rights in the event that Cabo was sued, as MGA had threatened to do.