Heavy D FINALLY Reveals What Really Happened Between Him And Diesel Dave

While the environmental case dragged on, an entirely separate legal threat was building — this one from Italy. Diesel S.p.A., the fashion company behind the DIESEL clothing brand, filed suit in 2019 against Diesel Power Gear, the merchandise line built by Sparks, Kiley, and Stuart around the Diesel Brothers name. The case, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleged trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and unfair competition. According to Bloomberg Law and other legal trade outlets, the court sided with Diesel S.p.A. in stages. It first found that the DPG marks were "confusingly similar" to Diesel's established trademarks in the context of how they were displayed — physical storefronts, website branding, and merchandise. It then found that Diesel's trademark qualified as legally "famous," meaning Diesel Power Gear's use of a similar name counted as dilution, and that this had been done with what the court called reckless disregard for Diesel's rights. The remaining question was money. Diesel S.p.A. argued it was entitled to Diesel Power Gear's full net sales figure — around $59.1 million. In September 2023, Judge Jennifer Rochon called that number excessive and instead reduced it by 80 percent, landing on a final damages award of $11.8 million. Stack that on top of the environmental penalties and legal fees, and by 2023 the Diesel Brothers business empire was facing well over $12 million in combined legal exposure — two entirely unrelated federal cases, one about air pollution and one about a t-shirt brand, both landing hard in the same few years