BEIJING: E-commerce giant Alibaba Group may take more rogue vendors to court after suing two sellers of fake Swarovski watches offered on its shopping sites, the first such lawsuit in China, analysts said.
The case, announced by Alibaba on Wednesday and filed in Shenzhen Longgang District Peoples Court, is part of Alibaba’s larger effort to rein in counterfeit goods. It comes weeks after Alibaba’s Taobao online shopping portal was put back on US trade authorities list of sites known for selling counterfeit goods.
The company said it seeks 1.4 million yuan for violation of contract and goodwill and intends to take similar legal action against other merchants. More such lawsuits are likely to follow, since they make violation of law a lot more costly for counterfeit producers, said Zhou Hui, an assistant researcher of law at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Alibaba is trying to shed its fame as a paradise rampant with fake items. It may seek further court action to broaden anti-counterfeit mechanisms and better deter counterfeit producers, Zhou said. Alibaba said it used big data and monitored suspected fake merchandise to identify counterfeit products worth 200 million yuan and locate the sellers in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.
Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2017
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