The Bombay High Court, on March 28, 2025, granted ex-parte ad-interim relief to Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) and its parent company, Unilever Global IP Limited, in a significant case involving the illegal sale of counterfeit and contraband products under their popular toothpaste brands ‘Closeup’ and ‘Pepsodent’.

The case, filed as a John Doe suit, was heard by Justice Manish Pitale in the Commercial Division of the High Court. Since the identities of the defendants were unknown at the time of filing, they were collectively referred to as “Ashok Kumar”.

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Hindustan Unilever informed the court that in March 2025, during investigations carried out in the markets of Patnipura and Ranipura in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and Pandra Krishi Bazaar in Ranchi, Jharkhand, their team found suspicious goods being sold. These items appeared to be duplicates of HUL's original products. The investigation revealed two categories of unlawful goods: completely counterfeit items and contraband goods illegally brought into India.

“The counterfeit products closely resembled the original ones and were designed to deceive consumers,” noted the court."Since the contraband goods are illegally imported and mixed with counterfeit products, the applicants are entitled to press for ex-parte ad-interim reliefs," the court stated.

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The company stated that some of these contraband products originated from Nepal, where HUL operates a legal manufacturing facility for producing genuine Closeup and Pepsodent products meant solely for sale in the Nepalese market. These goods were allegedly smuggled into India, mixed with fake products, and sold in Indian markets.

Highlighting the scale of the company’s operations, the court noted that HUL had an annual turnover of ₹59,579 crores for the financial year 2023-24 and offers 35 brands across 20 product categories.

The applicants claimed long-standing rights over their trademarks:

• ‘Closeup’ was adopted in 1967 and launched in India in 1970.
• ‘Pepsodent’ was adopted in 1945 and introduced in India in 1992.
• The ‘Hindustan Unilever’ and ‘HUL’ marks, including the ‘U-Logo’, have been registered and actively used for years.

According to HUL, their sales for Closeup during 2021-22 were ₹92,420 lakhs, with ₹13,970 lakhs spent on advertising. For Pepsodent, sales reached ₹25,420 lakhs with ₹4,660 lakhs in promotional spending. The company also holds copyrights over the product’s packaging and artistic labels.

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The court reviewed evidence presented by the company, including visual comparisons and reports, and concluded that the impugned products were indeed counterfeit. Notably, the word “Nepal” was misspelled as “Napal” on some of the fake items, and other inconsistencies were documented in detail.

Justice Pitale emphasized the urgency of the matter:

"Unless ad-interim reliefs are granted, the applicants will continue to suffer grave and irreparable loss."

Court’s Directions and Reliefs:

The High Court issued several strong directions in favor of HUL:

• Restrained Sale and Distribution: The defendants are prohibited from manufacturing, selling, or distributing any oral hygiene products using the trademarks ‘Close