War in court between Cartier and Tiffany. The two giants of jewelry, which respectively belong to the Swiss group Richemont and the French LVMH, compete in front of the judges of New York. In essence, Cartier accuses Tiffany of hiring Megan Marino, a junior manager, only to steal the secrets about the new collections. And, therefore, to have stolen trade secrets on its high-end jewelry. According to Cartier’s accusation, Tiffany’s focus is on the high jewelry collection, the famous Blue Book. These are jewels that have prices ranging from 50,000 dollars or euros up to 10 million each.
Cartier, in the subpoena filed in court, went down hard: he accused Tiffany of wanting to resurrect his own high jewelry unit after she was left in disarray due to several departures. Also according to the Swiss group, reports the Reuters agency, the move in the opinion of Cartier reflects the “disturbing culture of Tiffany of misappropriation of information about the competition”. The manager also signed a six-month non-compete agreement with Cartier.
The battle is only just beginning. Tiffany fired Marino after just five weeks. But the manager said in response that Tiffany was “more interested in hiring me as a source of information than as a high-jewelry manager.” Obviously these are all accusations rejected by Tiffany, which heralds a legal battle. For the Swiss group, in any case, business is not bad: in 2021 the sales of the Richemont jewelry brands (Cartier, Buccellati and Van Cleef & Arpels) increased by 38%.
