eBay Held to Account in French Court
June 9th, 2008 by debs
For the first time eBay have been held responsible for the items sold on its websites.
A FRENCH court has ruled that eBay are directly responsible for what is sold on their website and has ordered ebay to pay $30,000 to luxury goods designer Hermes for the their role in the sale of three counterfeit handbags.
The French judge found eBay directly accountable for the sale of counterfeit items by one of its customers. eBay maintains that it removes listings found to be fraudulent and argues that the liability for those listings is on the seller.
“By selling Hermes 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 seller and eBay “committed acts of counterfeiting and imitation of French brand names … to the detriment of Hermes international,” the ruling said.
eBay has said that its Verified Rights Owner Program (VeRO) is in place to make it easy for intellectual property owners to report abuse. The company has stated that the “court ruling relates to past issues of seller verification.”
“The court acknowledged that eBay has closed these loopholes referencing the anti-counterfeiting measures spearheaded by the VeRO scheme which brings rights owners and eBay together to tackle the menace of counterfeit goods.”
eBay was ordered to pay the fine jointly with the seller who put the bags up for sale. eBay was also ordered to post the ruling on its French homepage for three months. Other designer brands have cases pending against eBay for sales of counterfeit goods including Louis Vuitton, Dior Couture, and L’Oreal.
The Court ruling supports the luxury goods firms and will challenge the framework on which eBay have built a multi-billion pound business. Legal decisions forcing eBay to vet goods prior to being uploaded could prove a serious threat to their operation, which process millions of items for sale each day.
This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Antiques News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
