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Copenhagen--A Danish court has ruled that Lise Aagaard Copenhagen A/S, the parent company of Trollbeads, was within its rights when it terminated its North American distribution contract with Columbia, Md.-based Lund Trading LLC last year.

According to Lise Aagaard, the court determined that Lund Trading was in material breach of the exclusive distribution contract. The Danish company sought to terminate the agreement after it claimed Lund Trading was developing and selling a competing line of beads.

The ruling means that Lise Aagaard will now handle distribution of Trollbeads products from its facility in New Jersey.

“This is the best possible outcome that might have been expected resulting from these proceedings, which reaffirms the value of the professional and personal ethics by which Trollbeads has worked to protect the integrity of the brand,” Lise Aagaard said.

Lund Trading CEO Morten Petersen said he was “disappointed” with the court’s ruling. “I remain proud of the work Lund Trading did with retailers across North America. Together we built the biggest and most successful market of the Trollbeads product in the world,” he said.

The battle between Lise Aagaard and Lund Trading first erupted last January, when Lise Aagaard publicly announced it would be taking over distribution of Trollbeads’ products in the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean.

In a news release, the company cited brand confusion and a desire to work more closely with American retailers as the reason it was taking over distribution, though in a letter to retailers Lise Aagaard said that another concern was Lund Trading’s development and sale of competing bead line under the Novo LLC brand.

Immediately after the announcement surfaced, Lund Trading filed a motion for, and received, a temporary restraining order from a circuit court in Maryland, blocking Lise Aagaard from taking over the North American distributorship of Trollbeads.

Lund CEO Morten Petersen said at the time that his company’s distribution agreement for Trollbeads wasn’t set to expire and that Lise Aagaard had no right to terminate the agreement. He also denied that his company was carrying a competing line of beads.

Lise Aagaard appealed the ruling to federal court in Baltimore, and in February, a federal judge dissolved the temporary restraining order but sent the case overseas, saying that whether or not the agreement had been lawfully terminated was a matter for arbitration under Danish law.

Lund Trading then opted to pursue the case in the Danish court system.