Significant changes were made to the Diamond Dealers Club of Australia (DDCA) earlier this year, including the shuffling of the president and vice president positions. The club also unveiled a revamped website that removed various contentious and unsupported claims.
In September, Jeweller reported that a ‘position swap’ had occurred - former vice president Craig Miller assumed the presidency, while former president Rami Baron moved to the vice president's position.
Additionally, two new board members were appointed: Anna Cisecki, executive director of Australian Diamond Portfolio, and Nirav Shah, director of Affection Diamonds.
This publication was recently notified that Cisecki’s and Shah’s business websites may be misusing the intellectual property of the world-renowned Gemological Institute of America (GIA).
The GIA has strict policies regarding the use of its intellectual property for promotional purposes by third-party businesses.
The GIA logo appears on both the Australian Diamond Portfolio and Affection Diamonds websites without any apparent authorisation.
A spokesperson for the GIA confirmed that this matter would be referred to its legal department.
The misappropriation of the intellectual property of other international associations is ‘familiar territory' for the DDCA and its board members.
It first emerged in August 2022 when it was revealed that Jewelclaim — an insurance business owned by then-president Baron — featured several logos of international jewellery associations used for marketing purposes without permission.
At the time, the GIA’s director of corporate communications, Stephen Morisseau, told Jeweller that misappropriating the association’s logo was not a trivial matter.
“We are very protective of our logo and marks. Protecting consumers is our mission, and making sure that GIA is not misrepresented in any way is an important part of that,” he said.
“Retailers who carry gems with GIA reports and GIA alumni can request logos for specific purposes. We have no record of a request from Mr Baron.”
The GIA has since confirmed that this policy remains in place and that the organisation is not familiar with either Affection Diamonds or the Australian Diamond Portfolio. As a result, this matter has been referred to lawyers.
Pattern of behaviour
Following the exposure of intellectual property misuse, the Jewelclaim website was changed. The GIA logo, along with the CIBJO and World Federation of Diamond Bourse (WFDB) logos, was removed.
Two years later, and somewhat astonishingly, the new DDCA board members have been found to be misusing the GIA logo for their own benefit.
It should be noted that Jeweller has previously reported that the DDCA website was revamped which resulted in multiple references to ‘trust’ being deleted.
Previously, the DDCA called itself a 'trusted source' and referred to itself and the WFDB as ‘trusted associations’. However, the website no longer makes this claim.
Furthermore, all references to the unsupported assertions that the DDCA represented New Zealand were also removed. This occurred after various organisations publicly denied knowledge of the DDCA’s claim to represent New Zealand at the WFDB.
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It should be noted that Cisecki’s website also uses the logos of other organisations, including that of the Fancy Color Research Foundation (FCRF).
Miriam Chen, CEO of the FCRF, confirmed that third-party use of the organisation’s logo was not permitted; however, Australian Diamond Portfolio is a member and can, therefore, display a special logo.
Interestingly, Affection Diamonds is also an FCRF member; however, its website does not display the organisation’s logo - although it does display other third-party logos. The Australian Diamond Portfolio website also uses the WFDB logo for promotional purposes despite not being a member.
Jeweller contacted Cisecki and Shah regarding the use of logos on their respective websites; however, neither had responded at the time of publication.
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