Delhi High Court sets Benchmark for E-commerce Liability.
On 2 November 2018, the Delhi High Court held online marketplace Darvey.com liable for selling allegedly counterfeit Christian Louboutin products. The plaintiff claimed intellectual property rights, considering the platform used the name and image of Louboutin as meta-tags to attract traffic on their platform. Darvey.com claimed that they do not sell any product, but merely enablebooking of orders through their online platform. The ruling of the court observed that when an e-commerce platform is commissioned over unlawful acts, it is no longer a mere passive transmitter or online intermediary. In the same ruling, the court required Darveys.com to present the contact information of all sellers; request certificates from sellers that their products are not counterfeits; and to notify trademark owners before having products available on the platform. The case set a relevant precedent to make clear the extent of safe-harbour possibilities under the Information Technology Act. Since the Baazee.com case related to the sale of obscene videos, e-commerce businesses have denied liability for products uploaded by users.