LVMH condemned owners of Saint Ouen chips for their counterfeits
The victory is discreet, but to mark a milestone for LVMH. On November 18, the group condemned owners of Saint-Ouen chips, reports the magazine Challenges.
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The court recognized the responsibility of the owners of the walls in the sale of counterfeit products by their tenants in this place known for this practice. Result: the owners of ten shops must now “prohibit their tenants from selling counterfeit products under penalty of a penalty of 1000 euros”.
Arrests and seizures are struggling to stifle the counterfeit market in Saint-Ouen. Last December again, the police carried out a massive seizure at a merchant's: 2,341 counterfeit products were thus withdrawn. Evaluation of the damage: 228,450 euros. In total, in 2018, the flea brigade seized the equivalent of 2.6 million euros worth of counterfeit clothing. The damage very often affects luxury brands like LVMH.
The firm would not intend to stop at this legal victory, even considering tackling Amazon, according to Challenges. Contacted by Le Figaro, LVMH did not confirm this information.
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On January 28, the CEO of the luxury group, Bernard Arnault, attacked the e-commerce firm during its presentation of annual results: “They use their database to connect customers to sellers and they take a commission on the way. Which leads them, and here we are going to try to fight that, to sell counterfeit products. And therefore somehow to be associated with organized crime. Because these sites which sell counterfeit products are financed by organized crime, even by terrorism”, he denounced.
LVMH fights counterfeiting, and gives itself the means: each year, the group spends 40 million euros in this fight. On the Internet, he manages to remove nearly 700,000 ads per year. In 2019, the group received a prize awarded by the Global Anti-Counterfeiting Group (GACG) for all the actions carried out.
A permanent fight against counterfeiting
More generally, counterfeiting would represent between 5 and 10% of total world trade, reports Unifab (Union of Manufacturers) and would therefore weigh between 600 and 1000 billion euros, according to international organizations.
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Trafficking in counterfeits is far from posing a simple commercial problem. It is of close interest to the authorities. The Homeland Security, the American equivalent of the Ministry of the Interior, submitted a report on this trade to President Trump on January 24. The text is alarmist: this traffic would largely contribute to the financing of organized crime. It is, after the drug trade, the second most important criminal activity to fuel terrorism.
Homeland Security also highlights the role of e-commerce platforms in the circulation of counterfeit products, thus joining Bernard Arnault in his fight.
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