Coach files complaint against LVMH

US accessories brand Coach has filed a complaint against French luxury goods LVMH Moët Hennessy with the Japanese Fair Trade Commission. Coach allesges LVMH has repeatedly engaged in anticompetitive measures.

Specific details of the complaint could not be made public in compliance with Japanese law, but Coach alleged in a statement that LVMH has been actively trying to coerce Japanese department stores into dropping Coach by threatening to stop developing Louis Vuitton in those stores.

"We cannot accept being subjected to anticompetitive practices aimed at limiting our ability to freely offer Coach in the marketplace," Lew Frankfort, chairman and chief executive officer of Coach Inc., said in a statement. "It is not the way we do business and is contrary to our principles of fair play." Reached in Paris late Wednesday, an LVMH spokesman had no comment on the Coach complaint.

Louis Vuitton is the top imported accessories brand in Japan, but Coach has said that it recently eclipsed Prada and Gucci and is now number two behind Louis Vuitton. In Japan, Coach has had a 40 percent compound annual growth rate at retail over the last four years and the country represented about 21 percent of Coach's total sales in fiscal 2004, which were $1.32 billion.