eBay has to pay Louis Vuitton £1.5m for sale of Louis Vuitton products on its site

eBay has been ordered by a French court to pay Louis Vuitton’s owner £1.5m for failing to stop products being sold on the auction site. In 2008, LVMH obtained an injunction to prohibit the sale or purchase of any of their products on the auction site, whether they were genuine or counterfeit. Even though eBay has tried to stop LVMH’s products being sold on its site, it has obviously not done enough to stop this as 1,000 products were still advertised on eBay’s site since the injunction came into effect, the French court heard. Brand owners are largely concerned with stopping counterfeit products, but some also like to restrict the channels of sale to protect the products’ aura (and therefore the profits) – a model known as selective distribution.