In June 2021, the Casablanca Commercial Court invalidated the
Moroccan businessman Mohamed Zehraoui's claim to use the word
"Habanos", which belongs to the Cuban Habanos
Corporation, on cigars manufactured in Morocco.
It all started in 2011 when the entrepreneur registered the
company name Habanos SA in the Casablanca Commercial Register,
taking advantage of the fact that the Cuban corporation of the same
name had not registered the brand in Morocco.
For years that was nothing more than a name in a register, until
2019 when Zehraoui started to manufacture his own cigars locally
and offer them to luxury shops. The cigars were called Premium,
Roberto, Corona, or Romeo (an obvious reference to the Cuban Romeo
y Julieta cigars), among other names.
