For once, good news from a French court for eBay: a case brought against the company by French antique dealers and flea-market traders has been dismissed. It had been alleged that eBay was allowing commercial dealers to trade on the site claiming to be private individuals, which would contravene French law. The court ruled that eBay has implemented adequate safeguards to combat the problem. A statment from eBay said:
eBay has been fighting against para-commercialism for many years through very concrete actions such as the implementation of a series of incentive measures in order to prod sellers using the eBay website for professional purposes to register themselves as such, or the implementation of alert thresholds or also the signature of the e-commerce platforms trust charter.
Sellers on the French site are in fact forced to prove that they are properly registered businesses if they are to sell large amounts of product over a sustained period of time.
