The American Michael Jordan, a basketball legend in the world, won this Wednesday China an old lawsuit you filed against the company Qiaodan Sports for unauthorized use of his Mandarin name.
A court of Shanghai It ruled in favor of the former athlete and ordered the sporting goods manufacturer to publicly apologize and pay him 350,000 yuan (more than $ 53,000) for emotional damage and costs incurred during the legal process.
He also demanded that he stop using the characters Qiao Dan on their products and clarify that the products already sold are not related to Jordan.
And is that “Qiao Dan” is the name in Mandarin Chinese of the former North American star, but the company has included it in its footwear and sporting goods brand because the parties have been in dispute over that fact since 2012 and also because the company used the shirt number 23 and the logo of the ex-basketball player to look like they were partners.
On one occasion the spokeswoman for Jordan He said he worked hard to ‘establish his name’ and found it ‘very disappointing to see a company building its business on my Chinese name without my permission, using the number 23 and even trying my kids’ names to use’.
As he added, “the complaint is not about money, but about principles and to protect my name.”
Finally, it was also known that the Chinese company (founded in 2000) will also have to reimburse the $ 7,600 legal costs of the lawsuit to Jordan, which has an estimated net worth of approximately $ 1.6 billion.