On November 10, 2022, a Moscow Court Judge released a ruling accepting part of Sconnect Vietnam’s request for legal costs in the civil lawsuit 3-473/2022. 

The court will collect the costs from the claimant (eOne) and pay to the defendant (Sconnect) 240,000 rubles. 

This is compensation for part of expenses paid by Sconnect to follow the lawsuit raised by eOne in the Moscow Court in January 2022.

The copyright dispute began in November 2021 when eOne said that Wolfoo cartoon characters, owned by Sconnect, were remade from its Peppa Pig characters.

On January 11, 2022, eOne filed a lawsuit against Sconnect to Moscow Court in Russia, requesting the court to protect the exclusive rights of Peppa Pig characters by releasing a ban on creating technical conditions, and illegally support the implementation, distribution and use of the characters of Peppa Pig cartoon (the characters include Peppa Pig, George Pig, Mummy Pig and Daddy Pig). The remade characters, according to eOne, were Wolfoo, Lucy, Missis Wolf and Mister Wolf.

On June 14, 2022, the Russian Council for Culture and Art concluded that the Wolfoo characters are a unique creation and they are not remakes, or derivatives of Peppa Pig characters. The conclusion affirmed that Wolfoo is an independent intellectual property product in both terms of scientific and technical creativity and legal value.

After the conclusion was released, on July 7, 2022, eOne filed to withdraw the lawsuit in Russia. On the same day, the Moscow Court released a decision on terminating the lawsuit, stating that all the parties, including eOne, must not make claims saying that Wolfoo is a remake of Peppa Pig.

After eOne withdrew the lawsuit, in August 2022, Sconnect filed a lawsuit against eOne to the Moscow Court, requesting eOne to compensate the losses caused by eOne because of the copyright case.

The Moscow Court organized three hearings and then accepted a part of Sconnect’s request, judging that eOne had to pay 240,000 rubles to the Russian court to compensate Sconnect.

At present, the creators of the two famous groups of cartoon characters are suing each other in UK and Vietnam courts.

On January 24, 2022, eOne sued Sconnect in London, and on August 19, 2022, Sconnect filed a lawsuit against eOne in the Hanoi People’s Court.

Thai Khang