Two major Paris fashion houses are suing eBay for allegedly selling counterfeit goods.
Louis Vuitton is seeking damages totalling €20 million while Christian Dior wants €17 million.
Both lawsuits were filed over the summer, although they have only now been made public, and increase the pressure on eBay from luxury goods makers. The auction site is also being sued in the US by the jewellers Tiffany.
eBay France said that it takes an aggressive stand against anyone attempting to sell fake goods.
‘All sales of counterfeit products on eBay are totally illegal,’ it said in a statement.
The company runs a monitoring system known as Vero which enables trademark owners to alert the site to the presence of fakes that need to be removed. But it admitted that it cannot possibly monitor all the millions of items that are offered for sale.
LVMH, the company that owns both Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, wants changes to Vero so that more onus is placed on eBay to remove fakes, rather than genuine manufacturers.
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