The hunt for offenders is on, almost 100 days before the Paris Olympic games. The International Olympic comity is looking for every business using their ” Olympic properties “.

The 7th rule of the Olympic chart clarifies that the Olympic games are the property of the IOC which owns all the related rights and data. It is not permitted to use the words “Olympic” and ” Olympian” for commercial purposes, as much as the flag and the rings. The list of interdictions of the IOC to protect the brand is long.

Many businesses in Quebec are using these words, the flag or the rings and it is illegal but not a lot of people are aware of these laws. Only in Montréal, there are at least 10 businesses that use the name ” Olympic “, the flag, or the rings, most of them don’t even know they’re in the wrong.

5 years ago, Radio Canada interviewed some of these businesses; most of them weren’t aware they couldn’t use these. To this day none of the businesses have changed their names or logos. In 2018  the boss of a company named ” Lavage de vitres Olympique ” affirmed he never would have thought his company name could be illegal. Éric Milette said he chose it because the word Olympic represents excellence and he wouldn’t say that they are the best but they stand out.

Many other companies are in the wrong and most of them weren’t aware of this law. Unfortunately for the bigger companies, there will be fines, during the Olympics of Atlanta in 1996 the French store chain E.Leclerc had to pay a million dollars in damages and interest.

The IOC is not playing around with their brand, they are selling it for a whole bunch of money, and many brands are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to only use the logo.