German Judgement Agains small US Retailer

[laperf]

We have an online retail business selling perfume in the US. We sometimes sell to customers internationally. A company in Germany sent us a document in German (untranslated) asking us to stop selling a particular product in Germany which had a name that they apparently owned the rights to in Germany. We never knew what the papers said and sent them to the Perfume manufacturer to see if they could make sense of it. In the mean time they placed an order for the product, which we shipped. (That is the only time we have ever shipped this product to Germany) We were then served papers from an international processor. They were the same papers as before. When I was finally able to track down the lawyer, he said that the company he worked for had sold the rights to the name and that they only wanted us to cover the court costs of 1500 euro. I said we would stop selling the product in Germany, since that is what they originally intended with their legal action. He has now said that if we do not pay the 1500 euro they will pursue further legal action. Does he have the ability to extort this money from us? What jurisdiction does he have in the US? I don't see why we should pay for their foolish mistake of going to the courts in Germany to solve a problem that would have taken a single phone call or email. Do we need to be concerned about this? I am thinking of offering a small sum to get them to go away, but i am angered by the frivolousness of this whole matter.

They cannot really do much to you--they would have to bring that case to the US courts first.

Thanks for the info. So they would have to sue us in US court? Do you know if their judgment against us in Klon Germany would be a problem if either of the owners of the corporation ( my partner and I ) went to Germany on business? Or would it only pose a problem if we decided to open a store there?

Normally only if you have assets there in the country.