The Agence France-Presse reported that eBay was convicted by a French court Wednesday of selling counterfeit goods and was ordered to pay 20,000 euros (30,000 dollars) in damages to French luxury group Hermes. eBay Inc. provided the following statement in response to the ruling:
"eBay takes the issue of counterfeiting very seriously and we condemn it outright. Today's court ruling relates to past seller verification issues. The court acknowledged that eBay subsequently addressed these issues with its enhanced anti-counterfeiting measures through its VeRO initiative. VeRO brings rights owners and eBay together to tackle the issue of counterfeit goods.
"We remain convinced that lawsuits against marketplaces are not the solution. Success in fighting counterfeits will be achieved only through the joint efforts, trust and cooperation of all the relevant stakeholders. Currently eBay works successfully with more than 18,000 rights owners around the globe to counter fraud and counterfeit."
In 2006, eBay launched a new anti-counterfeiting initiative, putting limits on how many branded items sellers could list (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m12/i22/s01). eBay extended the program in April 2007 with its "Proactive Fraud Reduction initiative that delays such listings from showing up in searches (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m04/i11/s03).
Additional background on what Wednesdsay's ruling could mean for eBay is found in an April article on TheLuxeChronicles.com site (http://www.theluxechronicles.com/the_luxe_chronicles/2008/04/hermes-v-ebay-e.html). Other lawsuits against eBay by designer brand companies are pending.
Note that a link on eBay.fr's home page goes to a page about counterfeits that states shoppers who buy a counterfeit item in error can be compensated up to 1000 Euros under the conditions of the PayPal Protection Program. It also outlines eBay's efforts to eradicate counterfeit items on the site (http://pages.ebay.fr/information/anti-contrefacon.html).
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