France jurisdiction report: The role of warehouses in e-commerce

In 2014, Coty Germany—a German company with a licence for the ‘Davidoff’ trademark (EU trademark 876, 874)—discovered that Davidoff Hot Water perfume was being offered for sale by a reseller on Amazon’s German online marketplace.

Amazon marketplace enables third-party sellers to avail themselves of the “Fulfilment by Amazon” scheme. The products are then stored by companies in the Amazon Group and are shipped by external service providers.

Coty filed an action for trademark infringement against companies in the Amazon Group before the German Regional Court (Landgericht). The Landgericht first, and then the Court of Appeal subsequently, rejected the action against the warehouse Amazon FC Graben on the grounds that the latter had kept the products on behalf third-party sellers.