Delhi High Court Today (July 1) stayed a Rs 340 crore damages order against Amazon in a trademark case filed by Beverly Hills Polo Club owner Lifestyle Equities. The stay came without Amazon needing to deposit any money.
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NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court’s division bench stayed a previous single-judge ruling that had directed Amazon Technologies to pay $39 million (around Rs 340 crore) to Lifestyle Equities for trademark infringement. The case involved misuse of the popular ‘Beverly Hills Polo Club’ logo.
The division bench, led by Justices Hari Shankar and Ajay Digpaul, granted an interim stay on the order without asking Amazon to make any advance payment. A complete copy of the court’s order is still awaited.
This case started back in 2020, when Lifestyle Equities filed a lawsuit claiming that Amazon and others had used a similar logo to the “Beverly Hills Polo Club” brand on clothing and other goods sold on the Amazon platform.
The company specifically said that Amazon was making and selling products under its “Symbol” brand that used the infringing logo, and also accused Cloudtail India, a major seller on Amazon.in, of selling these illegal items.
Earlier, on October 12, 2020, the Delhi High Court gave an interim order stopping Amazon and others from using the logo and asked Amazon Seller Services to remove the infringing products from their website. Later, Amazon Technologies failed to appear in court, so the court proceeded ex-parte, meaning without their participation.
Meanwhile, Cloudtail India admitted it used the mark between 2015 and July 2020, and agreed to accept a legal ban (injunction) on further use. They even proposed a settlement involving damages, but mediation didn’t work out. Cloudtail admitted earning Rs 23,92,420 from the sales and keeping around 20% profit.
Based on this, the court awarded damages of Rs 4,78,484 (20% of sales) against Cloudtail and said that Lifestyle Equities still had the right to seek damages from Amazon as well.
Eventually, the Court ruled that Amazon was also responsible, not just Cloudtail, because of its close commercial ties with Cloudtail. It said Amazon couldn’t escape liability just by claiming to be a platform.
The Court criticized Amazon and others for trying to look like separate companies to avoid blame, saying they tried to “diffuse and dissipate the consequences of infringement.”
The court also studied the Amazon Brand License and Distribution Agreement with Cloudtail and found that Amazon gave Cloudtail full rights to use its branding and trademarks. Because of this agreement, the court ruled that Amazon was “directly accountable” for Cloudtail’s actions.
The agreement granted Cloudtail extensive rights to use Amazon’s trademarks and branding.
These contractual terms made Amazon directly accountable for the acts of Cloudtail.
Due to Amazon’s actions, Lifestyle Equities had to spend heavily on advertising and brand protection. The court found these efforts were a direct result of the infringement and awarded $5 million as damages for this.
As a result of the infringement, Lifestyle had to undertake substantial advertising and promotional efforts to protect its brand reputation.
The Court found these expenditures to be a direct and foreseeable consequence of Amazon’s actions.
Also, the court awarded $33.78 million (Rs 292.7 crore) as compensation for lost royalties. Altogether, this brought the damages to $38.78 million (Rs 336 crore).
Finally, the court added litigation costs and court fees, raising the total amount Amazon had to pay to about Rs 340 crore.
The ruling is a landmark judgment and could impact how e-commerce platforms are held accountable when sellers on their platforms break intellectual property laws.
Amazon was represented by Senior Advocates Neeraj Kishan Kaul and Arvind Nigam along with lawyers from Saikrishna & Associates, including Saikrishna Rajagopal, Sidharth Chopra, Sneha Jain, Devvrat Joshi, Angad S Makkar, Ira Mahajan, Pritha Suri, and Agnish Aditya.
Lifestyle Equities CV was represented by Senior Advocates Gaurav Pachnanda, Ankit Jain, and Sai Deepak, with a team from Sim and San, including Mohit Goel, Sidhant Goel, Deepankar Mishra, Karmanya Dev Sharma, Aditya Goel, Namrata Sinha, and Love Virvani.
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