The case of counterfeit clothing sold by La Polar continues to escalate. According to a report by DF MAS One of the suppliers against which the department store will sue is Kiki Imports, whose property today is owned by Nicolás Hites, son of Andrés Hites, who participated in the company until last year.
In this interview, the lawyer for Kiki Imports, Rodrigo Piergentili, a lawyer for the company, addresses the accusation.
– Since when do Kiki Imports and La Polar have a relationship?
– Kiki Imports is an intermediary company for sports clothing and products and began to be a supplier to La Polar in 2021.
– How did this relationship come about?
– Kiki Imports bought balances of original products abroad and placed them in stores in Chile. And therefore, he offered his product to La Polar on several occasions and several operations were carried out, all of them without any problem, all of them successful.
– Wasn’t it strange that your client Andrés Hites, director and shareholder of a competitor like Hites, was the counterparty with La Polar? He was Kiki’s representative until 2022.
– Kiki Imports operations were relatively small. Indeed, Andrés was part of Kiki, he ceased to be in April 2022, but he never held an operational or executive position or carried out operations. And the operations were so small that they did not come into conflict with a company that has no corporate relationship with Hites Sociedad Anónima. Kiki Imports and Hites SA have no corporate relationship.
– Why did Andrés Hites leave the company last year?
– Because he simply wasn’t interested in doing business. It was a very small operation.
– Did Kiki Imports sell counterfeit clothing to La Polar? Wrangler and La Polar say yes.
– We do not know. First, we do not have the background information that La Polar has, because we are not part of the criminal case that is being pursued against La Polar for the sale of counterfeit clothing. We must distinguish what we mean by counterfeit clothing. Did Kiki Imports sell clothing that was made in a factory imitating Wrangler pants? The answer is no.
– Could they have been deceived by that factory?
– But not like that. Kiki Imports did not sell La Polar products that had a fraudulent origin, that came from a factory that makes imitations.
– How are you sure of that?
– North American brands, such as Wrangler, do not have their own factories. They send to manufacture to different factories that are in different countries, mainly from the East, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Singapore, Vietnam. These factories receive a commission from Wrangler, Levi’s, Tommy, to produce a certain quantity of garments, with certain characteristics, raw material. And that production goes to the brand’s customers. Eventually, some balances of that production begin to be traded globally. For example, the supplier of Kiki Imports, and La Polar knows this very well, is a Panamanian trader, who buys those balances.
And when it is sold to La Polar, it is informed, and that is why obviously there is no deception and there is no scam, because La Polar knew who the supplier of Kiki Imports was, from which factory the products came and the necessary authorizations to sell those products by the brand.
– What other brands did Kiki Imports sell to La Polar?
– Converse, Levi’s, Calvin Klein products, with the same supplier, who was known for La Polar and never had any problem.
– What is the supplier?
– The provider is a Panamanian company called HBB. That supplier was known by La Polar.
– Is there a possibility that in the traceability of the product HBB has deceived you and sold you counterfeit clothing?
– There is the same possibility that La Polar has been deceived, that Kiki Imports has been deceived.
– And are you doing an investigation to dismiss that?
– We just found out this week. Kiki Imports has exactly the same information as La Polar. There is something that is important, and that is that Kiki Imports is a small company and was related to a team of product managers from La Polar who know perfectly well how the international clothing market works. And they could always, at any time, verify the documentation delivered by Kiki Imports. That is why I cannot understand that we are accused of fraud or deceit, even more so when it turns out that La Polar has a problem, as far as I know, with many products, with many brands and with many suppliers, and we are It intends to hold all of this accountable for a particular item, from a single brand. A relatively small game, of which all the information that was requested of us, we delivered.
– How can you make sure that the same thing that La Polar accuses has not happened with another of your clients, for example, Empresas Hites?
– We are trying to confirm and verify all the information we have received, with great surprise for the rest, because we have never had any problem with the traceability of the products. But we are effectively trying to verify that we do not have any more problems. In fact, we still don’t know where the problem is with this particular game, because we are not part of a criminal investigation against La Polar, we do not have the information that La Polar has.
– Did La Polar stop being a client of Kiki Imports?
– This was a sporadic relationship. Sometimes they bought us some products from certain items and La Polar has many suppliers that work in the same way. Intermediaries between international providers and them, therefore obviously at this time we do not have current operations with La Polar and we will not have them again.
– Have there been conversations with La Polar or with any shareholder?
No conversation. We don’t even know if the announced lawsuits have been filed.
– And is there an intention to reach an agreement?
– I don’t see how we can talk if we don’t even know what we’re accused of. It is pointed out that Kiki Imports would have deceived La Polar and that is completely false, because all the information that Kiki Imports has is the same information that La Polar has. We have no further information. We also do not know that the products are counterfeit, so we do not have the basis for a conversation. And they haven’t come close to us either.
