LVMH Tastes Victory In Suit Against eBay

The bidding has closed.

A French court has fined eBay $2.5 million, after deciding that the online auction site violated a 2008 order forbidding the sale of luxury conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton goods. LVMH owns Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs and Christian Dior, among others.

While eBay has been in court before for similar cases and won, the specifics in the suit with LVMH differ. According to the Times of London, LVMH has exclusive contracts with retailers licensed to sell their goods. Because of those agreements, the French court declared that eBay had no right to allow the sale of goods associated with brands retained under the LVMH umbrella.

LVMH also sought legal recourse to end the sale of counterfeit luxury goods, which may be the more important victory for LVMH: protecting their brand against cheap imitators that not only undermine their bottom line but their brands distinct standards of quality.   

eBay contends that it will appeal the decision, claiming that it performed due-diligence checking into the goods listed for sale. According to CNET, eBay is suspicious about who posted those listings for LVMH-associated goods.

eBay also discounted the proof brought against it, claiming that LVMH offered details on only 1,341 listings out of 200 million posted on the auction site each day. eBay believes those listings were deliberately posted by people to sneak past the filters. In 1,091 of the listings targeted by LVMH, the seller did not accurately describe the item, using misspelled brand names, no brand names at all, or only pictures to describe the product.

François-Henri Renault is quite the character.