Macy’s converted hundreds of regional department stores it owned into the Macy’s brand in 2006 – and after 10 years of dormancy, those old brands started appearing on Strategic Marks shirts.
Macy’s didn’t much like that — and felt the those brands names were still theirs, even if they weren’t in use.
Last month, a judge ruled that Macy’s has a “protected interest” in at least the Marshall Fields name, but ordered the two parties into mediation to come to a final agreement. If no agreement could have been reached, the case was set to go to trial on May 6.
Said agreement has been reached, with both sides able to claim a victory.
Macy’s will keep the Marshall Field brand name. Magnin, Bullock’s, Foley’s, Bamberger’s, Jordan Marsh and Robinsons-May will all go to Strategic Marks.
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Neither side had that much to say on the specifics of the final agreement, though Strategic Marks CEO Ellia Kassoff was certainly very enthused.
“We’re ecstatic,” Kassoff told the New York Business Journal. “We got 90 percent of what we wanted.”
“Now we can move forward with our plans, and we’re going to have the virtual mall, and then we’re talking to mall developers and investors and, in fact, department store owners about resurrecting the stores in brick-and-mortar form.”
