The legal battle between WWE and Panini over their trading card license has seen a new development, with WWE filing an injunction against the Italian company.
As we previously reported here on eWn, WWE terminated its contract with trading card company Panini for breach of contract.
Wrestlenomics is reporting that WWE filed an injunction against Panini on the same grounds. Panini is suing WWE in an attempt to retain its contract, which runs until December 31, 2025, and is valued in the “low eight-figure” range.
WWE’s filing alleges that Panini told the wrestling promotion last year that it was planning to merge with Fanatics, though that deal fell apart this past spring.
Panini had over 35 employees resign in April, many of whom were involved in the WWE deal. The new employees assigned to work on the WWE license were “considerably less experienced.”
According to the filing, Panini ran behind on several things including inventory, providing WWE with purchase orders, and responding to other routine requests.
WWE provided declarations and employee emails to support the allegations.
In August, WWE discovered that Panini had failed to uphold its obligations under the contract in failing to make prototypes or bring new products out for sale such as trading card games or digital trading cards.
WWE then terminated the deal on August 25th.
WWE claims Panini should stop sales of its products and either return or destroy all inventory.
In response, Panini has argued that WWE never had any issue with their performance before the latest incident.
However, WWE’s filing counters that the contract didn’t require it to do so and that Panini’s continued use of WWE IP will cause irreparable harm to the wrestling brand.
WWE yesterday, as expected, filed for an injunction against Panini in an effort to get them to stop selling WWE trading cards.
Background: WWE is trying to end its deal with Panini, likely so it WWE can license the rights to Fanatics. WWE tried to get a temporary restraining… pic.twitter.com/mkBHNPEmaJ
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) October 13, 2023
