A French court has fined eBay €38.6 million for allowing the sale of fake designer goods. Louis Vuitton Malletier, the bag and luggage section of the LVMH group, and Christian Dior Couture were seeking damages for negligence from eBay, claiming they had not done enough to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods via their site.
There should also be a judgement today on a case being considered simultaneously, where perfume brands Dior, Guerlain, Givenchy and Kenzo claim that though authentic product is being sold on eBay, the sales are still illegal because they are not through the companies’ approved distribution channels.
Earlier this month in a separate case, eBay were fined €20,000 over the sale of fake Hermes bags.
5 Responses
“When counterfeits appear on our site we take them down swiftly, and today’s ruling is not about our fight against counterfeiting,†eBay said in a statement from Paris.
“It’s about an attempt by LMVH to protect uncompetitive commercial practices at the expense of consumer choice and the livelihood of law-abiding sellers that eBay empowers every day. We will fight this ruling on their behalf.â€
Thats OK then.
Those brands are fighting a losing battle. I do not condone fakes, but I hate it when suppliers try to control the supply of their products in this way.
They are selling smelly water and cloth. I mean really, think about it, thats all it is. When are they going to get over themselves and realise that it’s the public who will decide the value of the product? What they fail to realise is that consumers have more power and information to see through the smoke screen of marketing & PR than ever before. This new found power (web 2.0 etc) is not gonna go away with a few highly publicised law suits. “luxury” brands, be afraid, be very afraid, your days of fat margins are receding.
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Hello
As you already know, we are committed to fighting fraud and preventing and reducing bad buying experiences on the eBay site.
In order to keep our site safe for buyers and sellers, we place restrictions on the type of items that sellers may list as well as the number of items sellers may list in certain categories. We wanted to give you advance notice that we will be further tightening the selling limits in June.
As a result, you may experience these added limitations when you try to list items such as certain luxury goods. You should also know that if you encounter these limitations you will need to wait 30 days before you can list additional similar items.
Sellers can appeal to have such selling limits raised. Our customer support teams will be happy to periodically review any seller’s account and in some cases may ease the selling limits. To determine whether selling limits may be lessened, factors such as buyer feedback, time and activity on site, and compliance with all eBay policies are considered.
We encourage you to continue to build up a positive selling history, and we will be happy to review your selling limits in the future. We recommend that you wait about 90 days before contacting us to review your account.
You can contact us directly by clicking on the “email us” link listed in the messaging you will see in the Sell Your Item flow if you encounter a selling limit.
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Lisa
eBay Seller Development
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THE POINT of the above email is that the 7 day limit on selling certain named brands is now going to stop you from doing business for 30 DAYS! List some stuff. Wait a month. List some stuff. Gee, is it just me or has ebay lost all sense of reality? Customers all over the world sell every name brand in the universe. They get them from garage sales, attics, customer returns, etc. etc etc. I am sure millions of people impacted by this will just love to list items ONE TIME A MONTH right?
Can we establish a paypal fund to help whoever can help to get the DONAHOLE NUTJOB back on the unemployment line?
Restrictive practices have been going on for a while, Tesco’s and Levi’s spring to mind and Levi’s won that one, but the key there was that Tesco wanted to source outside of the EU.
Within the EU it’s restriction of trade, so the companies look for a workaround and the counterfeit goods issue gives them an angle to cry foul and look innocent.