Rights & Brands Partners with TrusTrace to Bring Compliance and Traceability to Iconic Character Licensing
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, March 3, 2026 – TrusTrace, a global leader in supply chain traceability and compliance, today announced a strategic partnership with Rights & Brands, a leading licensing agency representing some of the world's most cherished character brands including Moomin, The Smurfs, The Beatles, and Pippi Longstocking, to strengthen supply chain transparency and compliance across licensed consumer products worldwide.
Rights & Brands manages licensing agreements for beloved characters, working with licensees and manufacturing partners across multiple, complex tiers of the supply chain. As regulatory requirements for product transparency and accountability continue to intensify, the company has selected TrusTrace's platform – recognized for its leading capabilities in primary data collection for managing risk, compliance, and impact – to centralize compliance documentation, strengthen supplier oversight, and create greater visibility across its global network.
"The characters we represent have been loved by families for generations, and that trust comes with responsibility. Our partnership with TrusTrace allows us to better ensure that products bearing these iconic brands meet high standards of transparency in their supply chain to ensure ethical manufacturing and compliance. This is about protecting not just the integrity of these characters, but the people behind the products," said Roleff Kråkström, CEO of Rights & Brands and Moomin Characters.
The implementation will roll out in three phases from January through June 2026, starting with foundational documentation, including factory information, signed codes of conduct, and audit certificates. The platform will enable Rights & Brands to manage compliance requirements that vary significantly by brand, product category, and material type, from PVC safety documentation to social audit certificates.
"Licensing brings unique supply chain challenges – multiple licensees, diverse product categories, and tiered manufacturing relationships that require different levels of oversight," said Shameek Ghosh, CEO and Co-Founder of TrusTrace. "Rights & Brands is taking a pragmatic approach to building the infrastructure needed to manage compliance at scale. We're seeing this same need across fashion, consumer goods, and other product-based industries as regulatory requirements become more stringent."
Rights & Brands joins a growing community of leading brands proactively building their supply chain data infrastructure to stay ahead of evolving regulatory requirements. The company plans to expand its use of the TrusTrace platform throughout 2026, preparing for emerging EU regulatory requirements including Digital Product Passports and enhanced transparency and circularity mandates.
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About TrusTrace
TrusTrace offers a market-leading platform for supply chain traceability and compliance, enabling global brands and suppliers to standardize how supply chain and material traceability data is captured, digitized, and shared.
Through its AI-enhanced platform, TrusTrace empowers brands to collect and validate primary supply chain data, streamlining risk management, regulatory compliance, product claims, footprint calculations, and enabling confident, transparent sharing of product origin and impact.
Trusted by many of the world’s most ambitious brands, TrusTrace has been recognized as a Top Innovator supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals by the World Economic Forum. The company is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in India, France, and the United States. Learn more at www.trustrace.com.
About Rights & brands
Rights & Brands is a global agency promoting art, literature, and design brands that aim to inspire audiences with stories and a vision for a better world.
Rights & Brands operates a worldwide network of 20 sub-agents and 900 clients, representing iconic brands, artists, and authors. R&B is the worldwide master agent on behalf of Moomin Characters and represents the likes of Astrid Lindgren, Stig Lindberg, Carl Larsson-gården Sundborn, Ilon Wikland, The Beatles, The Smurfs, Tove Jansson, Sam Wilde, Sofie Sarenbrant and many more.
R&B is ranked as the top 19 licensing agency worldwide, with an estimated retail value of 900M Euro. We develop and create collaborations with leading brands such as Acne Studios, Uniqlo, Patou, Fiskars Group, H&M, RIMOWA and Finnair.
Rights & Brands headquarters is in Stockholm, with local branches in Helsinki, Oslo, Hong Kong, London and Tokyo. R&B was founded in 2016 and has a yearly turnover of +320M SEK. Learn more at www.rightsandbrands.com
Media Contacts:
TrusTrace
Griffin360
Jess Passananti
jess@griffin360.com
