The War Wages On For eBay And LVMH

Filed Under: Legal Matters Francophilia LVMH

eBay lost yet another legal battle against LVMH in a French Court today.

Back in June 2008, French courts issued an injunction that required eBay prohibit French consumers from trading any and all LVMH fragrance and cosmetic products on any eBay site worldwide, regardless of whether or not the products were genuine and/or unused.

In compliance with the injunction, eBay instituted filtering software that checked millions of daily listings and made those deemed inappropriate unavailable to users.

Unfortunately for eBay, it seems their efforts were largely in vain as LVMH brought their case against the e-commerce company, saying that over 1,300 LVMH fragrance and cosmetic products were still listed on eBay's French site.

eBay said the listings were posted by users who intentionally circumvented their software, but to no avail. French courts fined the auction site 1.7million euros ($2.6 million) for failing to fully stop the trade of LVMH fragrances and cosmetics on its French site.

Alex von Schirmeister, general manager of eBay in France, said the fine was "disproportionate," and that the injuction was "an abuse of selective distrubition." He went on to say that, "it effectively enforces restrictive distribution contracts, which is anticompetitive."

You might remember that back in September, eBay was ordered to pay LVMH $117,820 for their inappropriate use of LVMH keywords.

Intellectual property expert Pam Withers said:

"The French courts have…tended to look more favorably on brand owners than most other jurisdictions, which explains the tough stance taken today. Undeniably, the French authorities are the most unwavering when it comes to championing the luxury goods trade, yet today's ruling will not necessarily result in similar decisions elsewhere in Europe."

In a statement, LVMH added, "This decision constitutes an important step in the fight against unlawful practices."

Hmm. What do you think? Should eBay really have been slammed with such a steep fine??

We're torn!

[Image via AP Images.]

Posted: December 1, 2009 at 5:30 pm