Ivanka lands in copycat shoe soup

New York, June 24: Ivanka Trump must testify in a dispute with an Italian shoemaker over one of her company’s shoe designs, a judge said Friday.

US district judge Katherine Forrest rejected a request by the senior White House aide’s lawyers that she be blocked from submitting to a deposition in the trademark infringement lawsuit brought by Aquazzura Italia SRL against her and her company IT Collection LLC.

The Florence, Italybased company sued President Donald Trump’s daughter last year, saying her Hettie shoe was a “virtually identical” knockoff of its popular Wild Thing Shoe, including nearly the same color, shape and tassel on the heel. Its lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. The judge says Ivanka Trump must submit to questions posed during a deposition lasting no more than two hours, “given Ms. Trump’s competing professional obligations,” and occurring in Washington, if that’s Trump’s preference. The judge said the deposition should occur by the end of October on a mutually acceptable schedule.

“I had no involvement in the conception sale of the Hettie Shoe,” Ivanka said, adding that those responsibilities belonged to the company’s licensee, Marc Fisher, which was also sued.

“My involvement was strictly limited to the final sign-off of each season’s line after it was first reviewed and approved by the company’s design team,” Trump said.