stolen street lamps
Architect sues Qatar over 'forged' street lamps
A Spanish architect, who alleges that Qatar forged nearly 1,000 street lamps she designed, has filed a lawsuit against the Gulf state.
Beth Galí said she was invited to design the street lamps for a 10km stretch of road in Doha for the 2006 Asian Games.
Authorities in the gas-rich state chose the ‘Latina’ design but instead of purchasing the lights from the official manufacturer, they commissioned Ashghal, the Qatari Public Works Authority, to copy the design, the architect claims.
Full story:
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/architect-sues-qatar-over-forged-street-l...
I must admit that they are nice lamps that I have long admired. You'd think Qatar could afford to buy them legally.
Eagley everything you say makes sense. However it looks like she was stitched up to me.
Re: "one of the largest acts of piracy in the history of design committed by a sovereign state is now being made public,” Galí said in a statement published on the Barcelona Design Centre website."
Was the design registered as an intellectual property? Is the design registration still valid and which jurisdictions do they cover, whether it covers Qatar? There is no blanket IP cover unless proper registrations were in place.
Not so fast ... maybe they were within their legal rights to proceed the way they did ie maybe they were not bound by the contract to purchase the lights from the official manufacturer.
The law of the land in Qatar is the contract the parties executed and that contract is usually heavily one sided at that material point in time pre-Asian Games 2006.
Some of the contracts now appear better / more fair but the fact remains that Architect, etc signed it pre Dec 2006 and thus, they are bound. There is also no such thing as an Unfair Contract Terms Act as in some other jurisdictions and so ...
In any event, contracts in Qatar are also usually governed by the laws of Qatar - so why is she filing her suit in Barcelona if not just to take advantage of the hulabaloo surrounding the WC2022 and the Human Rights groups raising labourers' issues (which have actually been there for decades) but have improved with greater awareness raised. Opportunistic.
By filing in Barcelona, it also sends the message that she thinks that the Courts in Qatar are biased and she won't get any justice. This is not how things work in a relationship based culture.
Maybe trying to force a settlement... I doubt that Qatar can be forced to kow tow to anyone though. Actually, her action can more or less be called a insult to the hosts.
Bottom line is : what the contract provisions are.