Filed under: Law, eBay (EBAY), Tiffany and Co (TIF)

As I wrote earlier this month, Tiffany and Co. (NYSE: TIF) and eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) are embroiled in a landmark legal case.

Tiffany is suing the online auction house, arguing that eBay serves as a marketplace for illicit knockoffs of designer goods. According to the New York Times, “If Tiffany wins its case, not only could other lawsuits follow, but eBay’s business model could be threatened because it would be difficult and extremely expensive for the company, based in San Jose, Calif., to police a site that now has 248 million registered users worldwide and approximately 102 million items for sale at any one time.”

A loss here could be devastating for eBay: implementing procedures to eliminate knockoffs from auctions could kill eBay’s juicy profit margins, and force the company to raise listing fees more than it already has. Alternatively, eBay could simply ban the sale of designer products that are a frequent target of counterfeiters. For its part, eBay’s reaction is basically “Police your own merchandise, Tiffany!”

Continue reading Could Tiffany’s lawsuit destroy eBay?

Read | Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 28th, 2007 at 12:10 am and is filed under Stocks Money News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.