Sony stops Lik-Sang from importing PSPs to UK

Company wins High Court Judgment over "grey" imports

20 October 2006 13:28 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Sony has won its battle to stop Lik Sang, the games hardware importer based in Hong Kong, from selling imported PSPs in the UK.

Lik-Sang.com, popular with gamers for importing hard to find and normally unavailable games consoles and games into Europe and the UK way before their UK release, has been told that its sales within European Economic Area (EEA) unlawful by a judgement in the High Court of London.

The court hearing took place on October 9 at the High Court of London, without Lik-Sang's legal representatives attending or arguing at the hearing.

It is unclear at this point if this ruling will also affect exports of PlayStation 3 due to launch in America and Japan next month and other PlayStation-branded items.

Sony says intends to obtain an UK injunction against Lik-Sang's sales to the EEA.

The legal battle with Sony over Lik-Sang's legitimate exporting activities started during August 2005. Sony complained about the sales of PSP (PlayStation Portable) systems to Europe and launched a lawsuit in the High Court of Hong Kong, arguing that Lik-Sang advertises the Sony products "in a dishonest manner" and "unlawfully interferes with Sony's economical interests". They further launched a completely separate lawsuit against the Hong Kong based company in the courts of England for selling PSP consoles to customers in Europe and the UK, and also for mirroring the freely available PSP user guides on their servers alleging copyright infringement.

According to Lik Sang, Sony has also threatened to initiate yet another lawsuit to prevent the sales of PlayStation 3 consoles to Europe following its launch in America and Japan 6 months ahead of the UK.

At the time of writing we are still awaiting comment from Sony in the UK as to whether or not this is the case.