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Outcome on latest German court case
After 3 courts’ decisions in favour of Ultra-Seal on several court cases against the BRV in Germany, Ultra-Seal recently collected another positive outcome in an oral hearing at the Regional Court (Landgericht) of Cologne about erroneous allegations by the BRV on environment and the collection of tyre casings (file no. 33 O 153/17).
The oral hearing was conducted by the BRV, based on a preliminary injunction issued by the Regional Court regarding wrong allegations by the BRV on environment and the collection of tyre casings (communicated by Ultra-Seal on 30/10/2017). In this oral hearing, the court informed Ultra-Seal and BRV that they were still convinced BRV’s statements were illegal even after review of the arguments and facts provided in BRV’s objection.
BRV accepted the court’s decision being final and equal to a main action decision, and therefore lost the opportunity to go into higher appeal. Ultra-Seal on their behalf let go an outstanding penalty that the BRV potentially had to pay because the organisation did not hold themselves to an earlier decision of the court.
The BundesReifenVerband is not allowed to uphold the statements anymore on both the product being environmentally unfriendly, and the wrongful accusations on possible tyre casing collection problems when tyres contain Ultra-Seal. If BRV does not obey the decision of the court and continues sending out any such statements as prohibited by the court, a penalty up to €250,000.00 as stipulated by German law can be imposed on BRV.
New distributor
Ultra-Seal has come to an agreement with GTO Piese de Schimb SRL for the distributorship rights for the sale of Ultra-Seal in Romania, Bulgaria and Moldavia.
GTO Piese de Schimb SRL has over 20 years of transport-related industry experience and focuses on reselling parts and spare parts to end-users in Romania. The Romanian company’s headquarters is based in Bucharest, with 7 subsidiaries throughout Romania.
GTO Piese de Schimb is a subsidiary of GTO Truck and Trailer parts in Holland. With its headquarters based in Heerlen, the Group in The Netherlands has over 140 employees and had a turnover of 80 Million euros in 2017. The GTO Group specializes in selling DAF trucks, spare parts for trucks and trailers and OE parts of, amongst others, BPW, SAF, DAF, HELLA and Textar. The Group also has a network of professional workshops for truck and trailer repair.
Change in Danish legislation on trailer MOT regarding tyre sealants non-legally based?
On 1 January 2018 new Danish guidelines on trailer MOT were published with an added paragraph about tyre sealants. After research and preparation for appeal, the first conclusion is that the modified guidelines, which are not law, have been changed based on a one-sided argument regarding tyre sealants without consultation of that specific business segment. In addition, the extensive statutory instrument regulating MOTs has not been changed with respect to this new paragraph.
Ultra-Seal and its lawyers are investigating the change, initiated by the Danish tyre association, and are confident to have it changed back to the initial guidelines which do not state anything about tyre sealants.
“At least leads and customers are realizing more and more what the political agenda is concerning the cases that are filed against Ultra-Seal, as our business is growing fast in Germany and Denmark” according to the company. Carla van Santvoort, Business Development Manager of Ultra-Seal further states: “The fact that parties with other interests are trying so hard to keep us off their local markets, makes people realise how good our product is in its working. If it would not work as it intends to, tyre associations wouldn’t be so worried by it. We keep on defending our product against every party that creates disturbance. We owe that to all our loyal users and want to show the world that currently accepted tyre-life is not something that you should settle for.”
Ultra-seal requests every user that is facing difficulties with its MOT in Denmark to report it to the company, as they are investigating the non-legality of it.
