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eBay steps up legal battle with vendors
Ben Furfie Sep 19 2008, 10:40am
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Action comes as EU competition commissioner says there may be a case to answer
eBay has stepped up its battle with vendors over restrictions they put in place to prevent the sale of products across international boundaries.
Calling for the practise to be investigated as anti-competitive, eBay's deputy general counsel Tod Cohen told Retail Week.
He said that he wanted to bring attention to the fore about the practise and the "abusive" distribution agreements, which he said around about: "manipulating and controlling the markets beyond EU market rules".
Worryingly for vendors, the EU competition commissioner has said that she believes there may be a case to answer.
"There are a number of practices that are being used to restrict cross-border sales, which I think require a closer look," Neelie Kroes commented.
Any ruling could have major implications for the IT industry, with UK prices being forced down by cheap imports from the US. For example, at the time of writing, Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium was available on Amazon.com for $202.99 (£111.75) but £142.97 on Amazon.co.uk.
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Comments
“ebay moans again”
Posted by: james - Sep 19, 2:23pm
At the end of the day ebay is just trying to increase it's revenue yet ignore the basic rights of the individual vendors. Why should it be any different for ebay than it is say for any other seller. Grey imports etc affect everyone. Plus it seems that it may actually cost them to implement a system to manage this