Amazon fined $39 million in damages for infringing ‘Beverly Hills Polo Club’ trademark: Report

The Delhi Court has ordered an Amazon unit to pay $39 million in damages for infringing the "Beverly Hills Polo Club" trademark after garments with identical branding were sold on Amazon's India website. According to a report by news agency Reuters, a court order showed that the e-commerce giant is fined $39 million in damages for the Beverly Hills Polo Club case.

According to Reuters, lawyers in India called the ruling a landmark judgment regarding the damages assessed against a US firm in trademark cases. It came after an antitrust investigation found that Amazon flouted competition laws by favouring select sellers on its website. Amazon denies the charges.

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What is the 'Amazon- Beverly Hills Polo Club’ case?

The trademark case was initiated in 2020 by Lifestyle Equities, the owner of the "Beverly Hills Polo Club" (BHPC) horse trademark, which alleged that Amazon's India shopping website had listings of apparel with a similar logo at a fraction of the price. The court said the infringing brand was owned by Amazon Technologies and sold on the Amazon India website.

"The logo which has been used is hardly distinguishable," the Delhi High Court noted in its 85-page order, which carried photos of T-shirts comparing the two logos. Amazon "is well aware of the exclusive rights of the Plaintiffs in the BHPC mark and logo as has been involved in litigation" in multiple jurisdictions, including the UK, and issued a “permanent injunction.”

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Amazon faced similar allegations in London by Lifestyle Equities in 2019. Last year, the e-commerce major lost an appeal against a ruling that it had infringed UK trademarks by targeting British consumers on its US website.

In 2021, a Reuters investigation, based on thousands of internal Amazon documents, found the US company ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs and manipulating search results to boost its own private brands in India.

Praveen Khandelwal, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, told Reuters on Thursday the Indian government must take action against Amazon for its "predatory" business practices.

In November, the country's financial crime-fighting agency raided the offices of some sellers operating on Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart in a separate investigation into alleged violations of foreign investment rules.

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