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The High Court in London has ordered South Korean technology giant Samsung to pay Swiss watchmaking group Swatch $11.6 million for allowing pirated versions of luxury watch dials to be offered for its smartwatches.

The legal battle between Swatch Group and Samsung in London has come to an end — at least for now, Robb Report reports.

High Court Judge Marcus Smith ruled that the South Korean tech giant must pay the Swiss watchmaking conglomerate $11.6 million for allowing copies of watch faces from prestigious brands including Omega, Breguet and Tissot to be offered through its digital smartwatch stores.

“The use of Swatch Group’s brands on Samsung’s ‘digital shop windows,’ where they were offered for free or at negligible cost, in my view causes enormous damage,” Judge Marcus Smith said in his ruling. “The low price diminishes the value of the brands that Swatch Group seeks to promote.”

Details of Swatch Group’s lawsuit first emerged in June. The Swiss conglomerate had initially sought $170 million in damages.

The case involved 26 third-party smartwatch apps whose developers had copied the iconic designs. According to court documents dated June 19, the digital watch faces were downloaded approximately 160,000 times in the UK and European Union.

Tissot CEO Sylvain Dolla said in testimony at the time that putting luxury timepieces on the screens of inexpensive smartwatches “kills the value of beautiful Swiss watches.” The argument over reputational damage became a central element of Swatch Group’s case.

“Samsung repeatedly attempted to downplay the scale and significance of the infringements, minimizing the compensation due to Swatch Group’s renowned brands,” a Swatch Group representative told Bloomberg following the ruling.

Samsung, for its part, argued during the proceedings that it removed all of the apps featuring the pirated watch faces as soon as it became aware of the issue.

This is not the first legal clash between the two companies. Several years ago, Swatch Group filed a similar lawsuit against Samsung, and in 2022 the technology giant was found liable in a related case.

Even if Samsung decides not to appeal, the dispute may not be over. An almost identical lawsuit is currently pending in the United States, brought by the same luxury brands involved in the London case.

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