Letao Wins Lawsuit against OkayBuy
21st Century Business Herald, 11/24/10
The Haidian District People's Court in Beijing has issued a decision in favor of Chinese B2C online shoe retailer Letao in its suit against online apparel retailer OkayBuy. The court ruled that OkayBuy's purchase of keyword ads on Google damaged Letao's commercial reputation, and constitutes an unfair competitive practice. In consequence, OkayBuy has been ordered to issue a public apology in a national newspaper within 30 days, and compensate Letao for damages and legal fees in the amount of RMB 100,000.
The dispute between Letao and OkayBuy began in April, when, according to Letao vice president Chen Hu, the company discovered that when "Letao" was entered as a keyword on Google, an OkayBuy ad-link would appear that stated, "Need tennis shoes? OkayBuy beats Letao!"
However, Letao's suit against Google did not receive the court's approval due to the fact that the ads occurred on google.com and google.com.hk servers, and thus were not the responsibility of the three domestic Google legal entities named in the suit. A source from Letao told reporters that the company's legal department was still contemplating an international suit against Google.
Editor's Note: For more background on this topic, please see "Online Shoe Mall Letao Sues Google" MD 7/13/10 issue.
Keywords: penalty apparel Internet OkayBuy B2C Google Letao Chen Hu law e-commerce litigation Beijing Haidian District People's Court
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