eBay fined €1.7m for selling LVMH scents illegally

Published: 1-Dec-2009

The online auction house eBay has been fined yet again by a Paris commercial court after it was alleged the company had sold LVMH group perfumes illegally on the Internet. The company was fined €1.7m for offences relating to Dior, Givenchy, Kenzo and Guerlain products. Earlier in 2009 the court explicitly banned the sale of these brands of perfumes and cosmetics by eBay in the context of a wider battle against counterfeiting and the preservation of selective distribution in France.


The online auction house eBay has been fined yet again by a Paris commercial court after it was alleged the company had sold LVMH group perfumes illegally on the Internet. The company was fined €1.7m for offences relating to Dior, Givenchy, Kenzo and Guerlain products. Earlier in 2009 the court explicitly banned the sale of these brands of perfumes and cosmetics by eBay in the context of a wider battle against counterfeiting and the preservation of selective distribution in France.

The court has now concluded that the American group has not respected its judgement. Pierre Gode, vice-president of LVMH, said the new decision confirmed that the courts intended to act against illicit practices and had criticised eBay for not putting in place those Internet filters to avoid online sales of perfumes by distributors with whom the group had no agreements.

LVMH found a large number of cases of what the group described as "eBay's deliberate negligence" contrasted with other sites and other online platforms where effective technical barriers had been installed.

Alexander von Schirmeister, director-general of eBay France, described the fine as disproportionate given that the company had - he claimed - respected the injunction "penalising French consumers" in preventing them from purchasing authentic products on eBay sites throughout the world.

Meanwhile, LVMH has stressed that it is not opposed to sales online and authorised distributors of its brands such as Marionnaud and Douglas had sales sites on the Web.

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