Wednesday, June 20, 2001

Battle for Becherovka Lone Bohemian claims he owns rights to legendary liquor By Leah Bower Zdenek Hoffmann styles himself a David, wielding a flat green bottle filled with herbal liquor to smite the giant Jan Becher company, makers of mighty Becherovka. The 41-year-old former tombstone maker with a master's degree in electrical engineering believes he is the true owner of the popular drink's trademark and recipe. He says it's a family treasure passed down from his maternal grandfather, and one he intends to use. Even if he has to fight for it. "Of course Jan Becher company will cease production here in the Czech Republic, because they stole the trademark," said Hoffman. Sitting in his small kitchen, surrounded by knick-knacks and flowered curtains, the Domazlice native exudes an almost manic confidence in his ability to take down the Czech Republic's most famous liquor company. Despite the Jan Becher-Karlovarska Becherovka company's efforts to dismiss Hoffmann as a "lunatic," the ongoing court cases surrounding the dispute have slowed the company's privatization efforts and cast a shadow over the power of its trademark. Hoffmann said he didn't even know about his grandfather's certificates until his stonemasonry business fell into bankruptcy in 1996. He got a call from the Domazlice district court asking him to pick up the license, which someone had included in stacks of paperwork detailing his assets. Because of inheritance laws, the license survived the bankruptcy, though his workshops didn't. Hoffman announced his intentions to start producing his own Becherovka-like drink in 1997. Nine months ago, he finally made it happen, with the help of a Slovakian company, Dajk, that bottles and distributes the liquor. The court battles have been raging ever since. Hoffmann is suing to prevent the Jan Becher company from profiting from his trademark, while the Jan Becher company is countersuing in Slovakia and the Czech Constitutional Court to stop Hoffmann's production, claiming unfair competition. It is also trying to have his documents declared fake. The liquor that is sloshing between the two parties is an herbal drink produced for about two centuries in Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), the west Bohemian spa town. Concocted by Josef Becher in the early 1800s, it is reputed to promote good health and alleviate digestive problems. It's also a popular souvenir for tourists. Hoffmann has been producing a slightly different form of the drink called Jan Becher Bitter, selling it in Slovakia and Russia, with hopes of eventually getting it on the Czech market. His product comes complete with flat green bottles from Poland and a blue and yellow label almost identical to that on Becherovka bottles. For Hoffmann, the whole situation is simple. Alfred Becher, who owned the Becherovka company during the first half of the 1900s, gave the rights and recipe for Becherovka to Leopold Klein and Hoffmann's grandfather, Josef. He was hoping to ensure survival of the formula through World War II. Klein, Hoffmann claims, died in a concentration camp. That leaves two families, the Bechers and the Hoffmanns, with the rights to the formula. Alfred Becher died in 1941, and since there are no remaining Bechers producing the liquor domestically, the Hoffmanns, he said, hold exclusive rights to the name and formula. Not surprisingly, the Jan Becher company has a different version of history. True, they say, there are no Bechers in the Jan Becher company today. But Alfred Becher's daughter, Hedda Baier-Becher, is 86 and alive and well in Cologne, Germany, said Alan Walden-Jones, Becher's director. Baier-Becher produced Becherovka domestically until she was expelled as a Sudeten German under the Benes decrees, and the recipe was stolen by the state, he says. She then started a Jan Becher company in Germany and began making Becher Bitter there. After changing hands several times, the German Becher company was bought by the Czech Jan Becher in 1999. Baier-Becher's rights came with the deal, Walden-Jones said. Baier-Becher doubts her father, Alfred, ever gave away his formula to a man named Hoffmann. "It is an entirely different handwriting," she said after looking at a copy of Hoffmann's heritage right. "I have never seen such a signature of my father in German type. He did not write like that. He did not ever intend to give the firm to anyone." Suit after suit The Jan Becher company is taking Hoffmann to court in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia to halt production of what communications manager David Binar calls his "fake Becherovka." "The sales aren't the problem. It is more the damage to the image of Becherovka," he said. But Hoffmann -- brown leather briefcase stuffed with documents because he represents himself in court -- is far from worried about losing. "I'm having a good time, especially in court when I listen to how [Jan Becher company] stands there and has nothing to say, then offers the court nonsense," he said, chuckling as he laid stacks of court documents out on the tablecloth. Now living with his girlfriend and 70-year-old mother -- who signs license contracts while her only child deals with the courts -- Hoffmann isn't tiring of the fight. Dajk, which bottles and distributes Hoffmann's liquor in return for using his license, produces about 30,000 liters (8,000 gallons) of the product each month, Hoffmann says. Hoffmann plans to open a distillery of his own in Slovakia by September, funded with proceeds from his Becher Bitter sales. Three months ago, he also opened a Russian factory, which he hopes will produce 500,000 liters of Becher Bitter each month for Russian consumers. "Based on the license contracts, we are going to produce in the whole of Europe," said Hoffmann, adding he would still rather write another book on electrical engineering than go into liquor production full time. The Hoffmann file Zdenek Hoffmann Age: 41 Hometown: Domazlice, west Bohemia Occupation: Entrepreneur Current project: Claims he has rights to the Becherovka trademark and recipe, given to his grandfather by Alfred Becher The Jan Becher company not only expects to win the fight here, it doesn't expect the dispute with Hoffmann to got to court in other countries. Czech liquor producer Salb, which owns 33.7 percent of the Jan Becher company, recently decided to buy an additional 59 percent of the company. It's part of the original privatization plan, but Salb had been insisting on a guarantee of its investment should Hoffmann succeed in his efforts. Salb finally decided to proceed without the guarantee. "The whole problem of this case isn't the person Mr. Hoffmann, because lunatics and kooks are all over the world," Becher's Binar said. "But this country isn't capable of dealing with them in the way they deserve." Hoffmann expects his stand to be vindicated in other countries because of trademark protection. "In the whole world, even in America, when somebody inherits the rights to something, he is the owner ... except in the Czech Republic." 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