Paris-Based Fashion Brands Wants lawsuit to continue against Alibaba

A Paris-based luxury fashion company, Kering SA filed have asked a US judge to be relieved from mediating its lawsuit case against Alibaba for allowing its counterfeit brand to be sold in the company's online platform. Kering SA which is the parent company of various brands including Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent said that it had filed a lawsuit in New York on May this year.

The moves came after Alibaba founder, Jack Ma made a comment during his interview with the Forbes magazine saying that he would rather lose the case and money for this case rather than settling. Ma also said that by doing so, the company will be able to retain its dignity and respect.

Reuters reports that Kering SA, through its lead lawyer, had released a statement which was read in front of the US District Court's judge on November 6. According to the statement, Kering SA is under the impression that the reason why Ma wants to mediate the case in the first place is not to gather resources for the case but instead trying to get Kering SA tangled up with an expensive and time-consuming lawsuit.

Furthermore, Kering SA said in the released statement that "It leaves the impression... that Alibaba's request for mediation was not made in good faith, but rather as a tactic to delay this case and to force Plaintiffs to expend resources spinning their wheels in an expensive and time-consuming mediation." In the same statement too, it was cited that the fashion company "do not want to foreclose the possibility of mediation in the future, but right now mediation would appear to be a futile exercise"

Besides Kering SA, others brand have filed a similar complaint to Alibaba as the company seems to be too easy in dealing with users selling the fake product according to The New York Times. Among the punishment set by Alibaba is just a removal or being ban from selling on its website. However, it did not stop the same user to create a different account and start selling again.

According to China Daily, this is the second lawsuit filed by Kering SA. The first lawsuit was filed in July 2014 and both parties had reached a resolution before a new lawsuit was filed again this year.

Alibaba was even placed under the list of Notorious Market by the US Trade Representative in 2008 due to lots of complaints by different brands. However, as the company managed to slowly reduce the amount of fakes item sold, Alibaba's Taobao was removed from the list.