The Belgian-based brewer, Interbrew, and the banking group, HSBC, have announced that they have settled their dispute over the ad slogan, “The World’s Local Brewer”.
The two companies said they had reached an agreement “to acknowledge each other’s worldwide rights in their respective slogans ‘The World’s Local Brewer’ and ‘The world’s local bank’ and further agree not to challenge each other’s use of its slogan”.
Interbrew, the world’s third largest brewer, announced in November that it was suing HSBC Holdings in Belgium in an attempt to stop it using the slogan, “The World’s Local Bank”, in its advertising, contending that the slogan was too similar to its own advertising tagline, “The World’s Local Brewer”.
While Interbrew lost the Belgian case, a case was still pending in France and Interbrew was in the process of appealing its first unsuccessful petition against HSBC in the Netherlands.
