E-commerce giant Alibaba sues vendor for selling counterfeit products

Alibaba has become a household name in many countries across the world as the Chinese e-commerce giant spread its operations in all corners of the world. Recently, the company came under fire after the United States (US) put its main platform on its ‘notorious markets’ blacklist, for selling counterfeit products.

Acting upon this recent set-back, Alibaba has sued two of its vendors for violating the company’s policy and selling knock-offs of famous brands.

The company announced on Wednesday that it had sued two Taobao vendors for 1.4 million yuan ($200,000) accusing them of selling fake Swarovski watches on their portal which was a clear violation of the company’s services agreement.

“Selling counterfeits not only violates our service agreement, it also infringes on the intellectual property rights of the brand owner, puts inferior products in the hands of consumers and ruins the hard-earned trust and reputation Alibaba has with our customers,” said Jessie Zheng, Alibaba Group’s chief platform governance officer.

Just last month, the office of the US Trade Representatives put Alibaba’s online sales portal Taobao on its annual blacklist, claiming that the company wasn’t doing enough to curb sale of counterfeit and pirated goods.

Even though there is no penalty on getting blacklisted, the move still put a dent in Alibaba’s reputation. The Chinese giant has been trying to improve its image in the international world in order to boost its sales.

Representatives of the e-commerce site said that this was the first time that an online company had taken a counterfeiter to court in China.

Alibaba was suspended from the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition watchdog in May.

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Posted by fatimaarshad on Jan 6 2017. Filed under Latest News, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.