Alibaba Group sued two vendors it said used the company’s Taobao website to sell counterfeit Swarovski watches, just weeks after the site was labelled a haven for knockoffs by US regulators.
The lawsuit is the first legal action taken by an e-commerce site in China against sellers of counterfeit goods and Alibaba seeks 1.4 million yuan (US$200 million) in damages, the company said Wednesday in a statement. The case filed with the Shenzhen Longgang District People’s Court is part of Alibaba’s larger efforts to root out counterfeit goods on its shopping sites. The company said it intends to take similar legal action against other vendors.
“We want to mete out to counterfeiters the punishment they deserve in order to protect brand owners,” Zheng Junfang, chief platform governance officer of Alibaba Group, said in the statement. “We will bring the full force of the law to bear on these counterfeiters so as to deter others from engaging in this crime wherever they are.”
Alibaba shares rose 2 per cent to US$90.36 at 2:27 p.m. in New York. The stock gained 9 per cent in the 12 months through Tuesday’s close.
Despite Alibaba’s effort to rid its sites of fake goods, the US.Office of the Trade Representative last month named Taobao a “notorious” market, citing an unacceptably high level of reported counterfeiting and piracy.