IP News

Company’s Directors and Officers Sentenced to 20 Years
September 26, 2007

A well-known retailer and distributor of counterfeit PlayStation games in the Greenhills area has finally experienced the full force of the law for their illegal activities.

Lucas Art Corporation’s President and Treasurer, Loreto Lee and Sally King, respectively, were found guilty of 2 counts of trademark infringement, 2 counts of copyright infringement, and 2 counts of unfair competition. The company’s store was raided twice by the NBI in June and August 2000, resulting in the seizure of more than 20,000 PlayStation discs.

Branch 167 of the Pasig City Regional Trial Court sentenced the two officers of the corporation to a minimum of 8 years to a maximum of 20 years imprisonment and a fine of P150,000.00.

The Court, while acknowledging that a corporation’s actions may be separate and distinct from its officers, stated that the piercing of the corporate veil can be resorted to where the corporation is used to perpetrate a fraud, justify a wrong, or used as a subterfuge for circumventing the law. The Court branded as “beyond comprehension” the claims of the officers that they did not know their store was selling and distributing counterfeit items because they were uninvolved in its day-to-day operations.

The accused still face identical charges in other courts, such as Quezon City RTC Branch 90, and Manila RTC Branch 24. These charges are for offenses committed by virtue of being officers in another company called Gameline Marketing Corp, which had also been raided several times for the sale of pirated PS games.

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