Amazon targeted by European justice for selling counterfeits

Luxury and counterfeiting go hand in hand. To obtain Louboutin pumps, an envelope of at least 600 euros is to be expected. But on the Amazon site, almost identical models exist at prices ten times, even twenty times lower than those of the French shoemaker. Faced with these practices deemed unfair by Louboutin, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), seized of this dispute between the French fashion company and the American multinational, opened the way to Amazon’s liability in the advertising and selling counterfeit products.

The CJEU finds that Amazon could be considered to be making the advertisement itself for fake Louboutin products sold on its site by a third-party seller. Why ? “The user of her site has the impression that it is she who markets, in her name and on her behalf, pumps of the brand”, estimates the Court of Justice.

The CJEU does not settle the dispute

Louboutin, known for its red-soled pumps, had brought two appeals in Luxembourg and Belgium against Amazon concerning the sale of counterfeit products on the site. However, the CJEU does not decide the dispute. It is up to the national court to resolve the case in accordance with the Court’s decision.

Louboutin maintains that Amazon has illegally used the red sole sign “for products identical” to its own and “insists in particular on the fact that the disputed advertisements are an integral part of Amazon’s commercial communication”.

For its part, Amazon displays its own advertisements and those of its third-party sellers in a uniform manner and affixes its logo to all advertisements. The platform also offers “additional services to these third-party sellers in the context of the marketing of their products, consisting in particular in the storage and shipping of their products”, underlines the Court.

These are all circumstances that can make it difficult to distinguish between Amazon and third-party sellers, considers the Court, and “give the normally informed and reasonably observant user the impression that it is Amazon who is marketing, in its name and for its own account. , Louboutin products offered for sale by third-party sellers”.

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