back to article L'Oreal appeals eBay ruling

French slap and shampoo concern L'Oreal is to appeal a recent ruling that eBay is not responsible for counterfeit or grey import goods which are available on its site. L'Oreal sued eBay both in France and the UK and lost both cases. It is the French ruling that L'Oreal is appealing today, although presumably we can expect a …

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  1. Raspy32

    Grey imports

    The annoying thing about "grey imports" (such as the described cans of polish coca cola) is that the product is exactly the same yet cheaper than the UK cans. Basically it highlights companies price-fixing their products to artificial highs in some countries.

    I can understand that L'Oreal are miffed about the fakes, after all it abuses their trademark - however my opinion is that if a company wants to make you pay twice as much just to buy their product in a certain country, they shouldn't be too pissed when you work out how to buy the same things on the net for less.

  2. Dazed and Confused
    Megaphone

    OUTLAW Grey Import restrictions

    Restrictions on where products may be sold so that companies like L'oreal can fleece the market should be banned. Companies are all so keen on the global market when it means that they can sack their higher paid European workers and replace it with near slave labour from poor countries. But when it comes to selling their goods they still expect to be allowed to come over all protectionist and insist on being able to control the distribution.

    Sure fakes are and should be illegal.

    But for real products then once the manufacture has been paid for them they should not have any right to say who the end customer should be.

    The law needs changing

    Stop rip off Britain.

  3. Rich 2 Silver badge

    Grey Imports

    Does this have any bearing on ASDA being stopped from selling grey-import Levi jeans some years back? What's the difference? Or are eBay claiming that they are not directly responsible for what is sold on their web site, which obviously, ASDA could not do.

  4. Phaedrus
    WTF?

    Grey imports

    I don't see the problem with Grey imports... actually, can you still get "grey" imports from the EU now that it's supposed to be an open market?

    I can understand prices being higher in the UK due to tax, retail space being more expensive, workers and transport costing more etc, but if it can be legally imported from abroad for cheaper, then we should be free to do that. Obviously we end up losing things like warranties and trying to return an item bought off eBay is either impossible or at least a lot more difficult than if you bought it from a UK retailer.

    So, leave us alone, we should have the right to buy our imported goods for a lower price if we're willing to live with the downsides of lower cover on warranties and returns.

    Mines the one with the Opel badge on the front of the Vauxhall.

  5. The Vociferous Time Waster
    Pint

    @Raspy32

    Price fixing is simple economics. You charge what you can in places where they can afford it and then you charge less in places where they can't. It's better to make lower margins in poorer markets than not make any at all.

    It's no different from cheap matinées in the cinema, it costs the same amount to put the movie on but the demand is lower so better to charge less and fill some seats rather than charge the evening rate and have an empty cinema. Discount hurdles are all around the place in the form of coupons and special offers which draw in people who are price sensitive.

    That said this is a french company against an american company in a french court of law. You can bet your croissants that the french company will win over eventually or there will be the smell of burning sheep somewhere very soon.

    Here's to the new icons, long may they be abused by the commentards.

  6. Christopher Ahrens

    Product distribution

    In theory the products should all cost the same to the retailer and distributors, where the retailer is the one that decides the price of said goods based on the local market. The only time products should cost more is in cases of such things like: having to translate/print new containers manuals, etc for the other markets; shipping to remote and heavily controlled nations; and paying for taxes / duties / tariffs.

    If a country cannot afford a product, then they will more that likely use a locally-made alternative rather than import.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    French?

    Really? L'Oreal is actually French? I always figured they were like every other exotic-sounding personal-care-product maker - claiming to hail from Switzerland, Italy, France, Australia, or any other place where people are assumed to be better-looking than Americans, but actually headquartered in New Jersey.

  8. John H Woods Silver badge
    Flame

    Even the word 'grey' ...

    ... is unacceptable, with its connotations of half-way to being a black market. Why is it that companies can exploit globalisation and consumers cannot? I suggest if the companies keep using the term 'grey imports' we should call their operations 'grey manufacturing'.

  9. Phil 54
    Pint

    coke and cigarettes

    Ah, I remember my daily trip to the shop to buy cigarettes from Ghana and Coke from Serbia

    Pint because at least the beer was british

  10. Jean-Luc
    Boffin

    Coziness w. big biz != free market

    #1 "In theory the products should all cost the same to the retailer and distributors, where the retailer is the one that decides the price of said goods based on the local market"

    #2 "Price fixing is simple economics. You charge what you can in places where they can afford it and then you charge less in places where they can't. It's better to make lower margins in poorer markets than not make any at all."

    POV #2 is correct, not #1. The retailer, distributors and manufacturers all get to decide on _their_ bit. If the manufacturer wants to raise prices, so be it.

    If you don't like a company's pricing or global approach, fine. Buy someone else's goods.

    However, if the law forbids importing legitimate products of that company from elsewhere, that shows too much coziness between lobbyists and politicians. Certain countries (France) have huge retail markups and it shows the markets aren't quite as free as they should be.

    Nope, I wouldn't bet on the Frogs loosing on their own turf and I don't foresee any burning sheep.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Troll

    Sorry, but no

    Grey imports are not only cheaper because prices are lower in Poland, but quite likely also because import taxes, VAT and other fees have not been paid. Hence, buying grey means stealing. Or maybe pirating... ;-)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @David W

    Apparently listed as a French company, but one quarter owned by Europe's richest woman and one quarter owned by that paragron of Swiss business virtue Nestle.

    If wikipedia is to be believed...

  13. Spleen

    @Grumpy

    Nope. If you don't pay applicable taxes then it's a black import. This is a matter of definition: if there's illegality of any sort involved, whether it's theft, illegal production/import or tax evasion, it's black market.

    John Woods is quite right - to call the practice "grey market" in the first place is to do the work of the corporates in spreading FUD. "Grey" implies something between between legal (white) and illegal (black), but there is no such thing. You are either guilty of breaking taxation or import laws or you're not.

    To reinforce what has been said above, price discrimination is a perfectly normal part of the free market. In a perfect market everyone would buy Coke at the local corner store until Coke started selling at "grey import" prices to the supermarkets as well, but, as everyone knows (including genuine economists) perfect markets don't exist. So, in a real-world free market, grey imports are a perfectly legitimate way of getting a better deal at the expense (freely accepted) of reduced consumer protection or a bit of research/luck.

    Legal barriers, on the other hand, which do absolutely no good to consumers or producers other than the corporates with a stock of brown envelopes, have nothing to do with price discrimination or free markets, it's just corporatism at its usual corrupt work. Take the matinée example: suppose you were in a group of childless 20-somethings, i.e. the usual market for higher-price evening showings, and you one day decided to go to the cheaper matinée, but when you got there a policeman told you weren't legally allowed to buy cheap tickets and you'd have to come back in the evening. That's how it would work if it worked the same way as "grey imports".

  14. WhatWasThat?
    FAIL

    Corporate protectionism

    Sorry, but there is no "Global Economy(r)" - all we have is vast opportunities for corporate protectionism.

    Where "economic protectionism" is typically viewed as legal or cultural (boycotts, etc) barriers to trading goods from one country, company, or area to another country or area, "corporate protectionism" is what is practised by companies in a reverse way.

    This means that goods or services manufactured or provided from one central area are priced differently when they finally "arrive" or are otherwise consumed in different areas. Services here include web-based "products" from a central server location.

    I agree that there _is nothing wrong_ with a company doing this on their own. But when it becomes "illegal" to conduct trade by _legally_ purchasing goods in one (sudden, artificially created) "market" and _personally_ resale in another, paying all applicible taxes, etc., then there is something seriously wrong. At that point, the company is showing its contempt for their customers, both in simple grace and intelligence.

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