eBay loses leather court case: more to follow
Online auction site eBay was convicted by a French court on June 4 of selling counterfeit Hermès leather bags and was ordered to pay the luxury goods brand €20,000 in compensation.
The court ruling, which marks a first in France, found eBay directly responsible for the sale on its website of three Hermès bags (for €3,000) including two fakes.
The US auction site was ordered to pay damages jointly with the woman who put the bags up for sale.
“By selling Hermès bags and branded accessories on the eBay.fr site, and by failing to act within their powers to prevent reprehensible use of the site, [the user and eBay] committed acts of counterfeiting and imitation of French brand names ... to the detriment of Hermès international,” said the ruling.
The court also ordered eBay to publish the ruling on its French homepage for three months.
“We are satisfied that they should be considered counterfeiters,” said Hermès’ lawyer, Emmanuel Colomes, who had been seeking €30,000 euros in damages for complicity in the sale of counterfeit goods.
The French union of manufacturers UNIFAB welcomed the ruling as an important step in the fight against piracy and counterfeiting.
Luxury fashion houses Louis Vuitton and Dior Couture have also taken legal action against eBay before the Paris commercial court, respectively seeking €20 million and €17 million in damages. Both brands accuse eBay of complicity in the sale of counterfeit goods by allowing buyers and sellers to transact without imposing any controls.
Also in France, the auction industry took legal action against the online giant last December, accusing it of encouraging trade in pirated and stolen goods.
The argument eBay has always used to counter this is that it is merely providing a marketplace online and cannot control what users decide to buy or sell there.
At the Hermès trial in the city of Troyes in April, Mr Colomes had argued that eBay was more than a mere host for the counterfeit items. He said: “It is an active player in the transaction because not only does it offer a number of services to improve the sale, but when it does not work well enough or fast enough, it intervenes with the client. It is perfectly informed of the transactions since it takes a percentage cut.”
