Cosmetics giant L'Oréal has become the latest in a long line of companies to sue online auction site, EBay, for sales of counterfeit products under its brand name.
After two months of talks between the companies, L'Oréal eventually filed the complaints in August in France, Germany, the UK, Spain and Belgium after a satisfactory outcome could not be reached. L'Oréal has allegedly claimed that the world famous auctioneer site does not do enough to protect against counterfeit fraud.
L'Oréal has estimated the value of goods sold falsely on EBay under its brand to amount to over several million Euros.
The latest move follows threats of legal action from PPR, the French brand that owns Gucci, and LVMH, which owns Christian Dior. The companies have called for the world famous auctioneer to up its attempts to crack down on illegal sales of its products.
Indeed, many companies are suggesting that the company's verified rights owner monitoring system VeRO does little to address the issue.
EBay is reportedly worried that any collaboration it had with L'Oréal could now be under jeopardy in the wake of the recent allegations. However, the company is making moves to bring its anti-counterfeit policy up to scratch with a new initiative to cut three-day sales for high-risk goods such as clothing, accessories and perfumes - allowing more time to investigate products on offer.