England football shirt trade war hits fever pitch as Asda sells shirts at half their RRP after sourcing from grey market

Asda is taking on the dominant might of Umbro after the supermarket bought official England shirts from the European Union grey market for re-sale in the UK – at half of Umbro’s recommended retail price. Umbro makes the official England football shirts, and as excitement mounts over the World Cup, fans are having to fork out £49.99 per shirt in the shops. Umbro only sells to certain retail outlets. After Asda’s attempts to buy the shirts from Umbro were thwarted, it sent distributors around Germany, France and Spain to buy them in those cheaper markets and sell them in the UK for just £25 each. This process is known as ‘parallel importing’ and involves purchases on the ‘grey market’. Asda has managed to source about 50,000 shirts and there is every likelihood that many customers will be disappointed by fast-selling sales if the stocks run out. Asda has written to Vince Cable, the new Business Secretary, to ask him to take action against what it sees as consumer rip-offs.

Asda has been able to legitimately buy goods from the EU for sale elsewhere in the EU, but as Tesco found out when it lost its battle to stock Levi jeans in 2002 it is an unlawful use of trade marks to buy goods from outside the EU for sale in the EU unless the brand owner has agreed to this.

Paul Gershlick, a Partner at Matthew Arnold & Baldwin LLP and editor of www.Upload-IT.com, comments: ‘Umbro could be in trouble if they are found to be abusing a dominant position in the market by refusing to supply customers and this keeps the price artificially high for consumers. However, it may be that Asda has sold the shirts at low or negative profit in order to prove a point and make a case, and that Umbro is merely making a reasonable level of profit.’