Lifestyle Equities CV & Anor v Amazon UK Services Ltd & Ors [2024] UKSC 8 (06 March 2024)
Citation:Lifestyle Equities CV & Anor v Amazon UK Services Ltd & Ors [2024] UKSC 8 (06 March 2024)
Rule of thumb: If you have agreed exclusive rights with a brand name (Beverly Hills) to sell their clothes in the UK & Europe, can people in the UK & Europe go onto an American website to buy the clothes & get them shipped out? No, this is a breach of trademark law for this to be done, and any platform who does not stop this once it is brought to their attention is liable for the lost profits.
Background facts: This invoked the subjects of trademarks, competition, & movable property. The basic facts of this case were that Lifestyle had agreed a deal with Beverly Hills Polo Club to be the exclusive sellers of their clothing in the UK & Europe. The sellers of this in America had an Amazon website which Europeans & British people could access, and then Amazon would deliver this to the European & British addresses. Lifestyle informed Amazon of this, but they continued to allow these goods to be sold.
Court held: The Court held that Amazon were acting in breach of trademark laws, and that they owed the European sellers the damages caused by these sales.
Ratio-decidendi:
‘80. For those reasons, if free or compelled to conduct our own analysis, we would conclude that Amazon did target the UK as a destination for the US branded goods by its display of them on its USA website, provided of course that each product thus displayed was marked as available for shipment to the UK. That is, in our judgment, the view which an average consumer would clearly form as the result of their experience of the USA website, right through from the landing page to the moment of contract by clicking the "Place your order in GBP" button on the "Review your order" page. Nothing in the possible contra-indicators comes near to displacing that conclusion’.
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.