A CAT-FIGHT between the creators of Barbie and her rivals, the sultry Bratz dolls, has ended in a $100 million verdict following a legal showdown that brought trouble to toy-town.
A federal jury found that MGA Entertainment used stealthy business manoeuvres to land itself the design rights to Bratz, when the copyright legally belonged to Mattel.
Mattel had asked for $2 billion in damages, claiming that MGA "stole" the idea
for the doe-eyed Bratz in a secret deal with the dolls' designer, Carter Bryant, who still worked for Mattel when he first drew up the sketches.
But a jury in Riverside, California, rejected Mattel's financial demands and instead recommended a payout of $100 million, saving MGA from potential meltdown.
"Regardless of the final amount set by the court, we are pleased that the principles of fair play and fair competition that prompted Mattel to bring suit in the first place have prevailed," said Mattel's chief executive, Bob Eckert.
"Mattel has pursued this case first and foremost as a matter of principle. We have an obligation to defend ourselves against competitors who choose to engage in fraudulent activities against us. We're pleased that the jury agreed with Mattel that what MGA did was wrong."
The "handbags at dawn" tussle between two of the world's biggest toymakers blew up after Mattel, known as the house of Barbie, lost designer Carter Bryant to MGA in 2000.
Eight months later, MGA launched Bratz, a range that at that time consisted of four dolls known as Yasmin – named in honour of Jasmine Larian, daughter of MGA's chief executive Isaac Larian – Chloe, Jade and Sasha, and which were based on drawings that Mr Bryant had come up with one month before he left Mattel's employment.
The brashly made up, urban-themed dolls sent the more elegant Barbie toppling from the number one spot in several countries, including Britain. They scooped awards and spawned a torrent of spin-off products such as CDs, video games, a live concert tour featuring Bratz look-alikes and a Bratz mobile telephone.
As the franchise expanded, Yasmin and friends were joined by others such as Sharidan, Dana, Roxxi and Phoebe, and the range of outfits, accessories and themed backdrops grew.
In 2006, with Bratz pulling in a reported $500 million a year and Barbie's 40-year dominance of dolls over, Mattel filed a 58-page lawsuit claiming the credit should be all theirs. It accused MGA of the "theft of Bratz", and accused the company and Mr Larian of copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets and racketeering.
Mr Larian branded the action as "sour grapes" and "fabricated paranoia". In a counter-lawsuit, MGA accused Mattel of copying some of Bratz's beauty secrets and racy fashions in order to give Barbie a makeover and make her more competitive, and of using coercion and threats against distributors and retailers to try to stifle Bratz's success.
Jurors awarded all but four of Mr Bryant's drawings and models of the Bratz prototypes to Mattel. While finding that Mr Larian and MGA were liable for copyright infringement, jurors said that they did not consider the breach to have been willful, and declined Mattel's demand for punitive damages.
