Swedish dairy company Lindahls has paid almost 160,000 euros in compensation to Minas Karatzoglis, a Greek man whose picture is used on what the company calls Turkish style yoghurt.
77-year-old Minas Karatzoglis had argued that the company did not have permission to use his image and sued for 670,932 euros.
Lindahls had obtained the image from a photo agency.
The dairy and the man have now reached agreement over the use of his image.
“I can confirm that we have reached a settlement and all parties are satisfied,” said Tomas Axelsson from Lindahls.
“We have always maintained that we had the rights to the image, but now we have settled the issue and plan to continue to use it,” he said.
Minas Karatzoglis, who lives in Greece, was made aware of the use of his picture on the popular Swedish product when an acquaintance living in Stockholm recognised his bearded friend.
Karatzoglis underlined that he is not Turkish, he is Greek, and lives in Greece, and the use of his picture is thus misleading both for those who know him and for buyers of the product.
Mr Karatzoglis’s lawyer, Vassilis Dimitriou said that his client’s picture in traditional garb had been taken in the Greek town of Delphi during a fair years ago.
“That day he also bore the weapons of his great-grandfather who had actually fought against the Turks,” Mr Dimitriou said. “Somebody took his picture and sold it to an image database.”