The EU Court of Justice finds that a luxury goods supplier may prevent its authorized retailers from using third-party platforms to sell its products to preserve the products' luxury image (Coty Germany / Parfümerie Akzente)

Cole, Miranda; Boudet, Jennifer

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6 Dec 2017

The EU Court of Justice finds that a luxury goods supplier may prevent its authorized retailers from using third-party platforms to sell its products to preserve the products’ luxury image (Coty Germany / Parfümerie Akzente)

KEYWORDS

Reference

EU Court of Justice, Coty Germany / Parfümerie Akzente, Case C-230/16, 6 December 2017

On 6 December 2017, the Court of Justice of European Union (CJEU) issued its long-awaited Judgment in Coty Germany GmbH v Parfümerie Akzente GmbH. Taking an approach similar to that adopted by Advocate General (AG) Wahl in his Opinion in July, the CJEU found that a supplier of luxury goods may prevent its authorised retailers from using third-party platforms in a “discernible” manner [1] to sell its products, in order to preserve the products’ luxury image. On 25 April, the German Supreme Regional Court in Frankfurt referred a number of questions to the CJEU regarding steps taken by Coty in response to its authorised distributor Parfümerie Akzente’s (Akzente) sale of perfumes on Amazon Marketplace. In this case, the CJEU had to consider the type of restrictions on online sales on

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Authors

Miranda Cole
Norton Rose Fulbright (Brussels)

Belgium 26 contributions 22080 visits
Jennifer Boudet
European Commission - DG COMP (Brussels)

Belgium 4 contributions 4333 visits

Quotation

Miranda Cole, Jennifer Boudet, The EU Court of Justice finds that a luxury goods supplier may prevent its authorized retailers from using third-party platforms to sell its products to preserve the products’ luxury image (Coty Germany / Parfümerie Akzente), 6 December 2017, e-Competitions December 2017, Art. N° 95622

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