L'Oreal takes eBay to court over counterfeit sales in UK
The France-based cosmetics company has claimed that eBay does not do enough to police counterfeit products that are sold on its site, according to UK newspaper the Financial Times.
eBay denies the claim and has said it merely provides a trading platform for goods and cannot be expected to be responsible for L’Oreal’s trademarks.
Case follows Belgian verdict
L’Oreal has brought the case to court in a number of European countries, but it seems a European standpoint may be missing.
The company lost to eBay in Belgium last August when courts dismissed the claims that eBay wasn’t doing enough to stop sales of fakes.
L’Oreal stated ‘utmost surprise’ at the verdict and said that it did not agree with the recent European Commission interpretation of the eCommerce Directive.
The French verdict is expected later this week.
Back in December 2008 the company asked the Paris court to appoint an expert to determine the actual value of lost revenue it had experienced as a result of the sales of fakes on eBay.
It claims that as many as 60 per cent of the perfumes sold on eBay under its luxury brand names were fake.
The French government has recently launched an initiative to help fight the sales of fakes through co-operation between e-commerce sites and brand owners.
The plan has been given to Bernard Brochand, the president of the French anti-counterfeit committee (CNAC) to administer. It aims to define the type of cooperation and methods that need to be put into place to effectively fight against sales of counterfeit goods over the internet and the conclusions are to be published by the end of the summer 2009.
