French court rules in favour of eBay in L’Oréal fakes case

Disparate court rulings have been highlighted by European commentators following the rejection by a Paris tribunal of L'Oréal's action against the US online auction house eBay for alleged counterfeiting. Earlier, a similar tribunal found in favour of Hermes and LVMH in their actions against eBay, fined the US group €20,000 in the Hermes case and €40 million in the case of LVMH.

“This is a clear legal victory for eBay and an important victory for consumers,” said Richard Ambrose, head of trust and safety for eBay UK and Ireland, of the ruling in the L'Oréal case. He stated that 99% of all items listed on the site were genuine products adding, “ongoing dialogue and collaboration, rather than litigation, is the only way to effectively identify and remove any counterfeit items which do appear on our site.”

L'Oréal had also claimed damages of some €3.5 million but the tribunal said eBay had only "helped" Internet-based clients to sell their products and did not control the content of market offers. The tribunal's view was that eBay is a site provider and could not be responsible for representations made about products if it had no effective knowledge of their illicit character. However, the court admitted that action to prevent counterfeiting faced significant difficulties on the eBay platform in the case of cosmetics and perfumes and called on L'Oréal and eBay to collaborate closely to reduce it. L'Oréal said that it accepted this request from the tribunal in order to set up permanent and effective measures to tackle counterfeiting.

Alexander von Schirmeister, director-general of eBay in France, said the decision was a victory for eBay and consumers. However, cases brought by L'Oréal remain to be heard in the UK and Spain. The cosmetics giant lost a similar case against eBay in a Belgian court over the site’s alleged sale of counterfeit fragrances last year.