Guwahati : In a major legal respite, the Delhi High Court has suspended a prior order which had ordered Amazon Technologies, a group company of Amazon Inc., to pay Rs 340 crore ($39 million) in compensation to Lifestyle Equities for purported trademark infringement of the Beverly Hills Polo Club (BHPC) brand.
A division bench of Justices C Hari Shankar and Ajay Digpaul issued the interim order on Tuesday, staying the execution of a February 2025 single-judge order that had held Amazon Technologies guilty of the unauthorized use of a deceptively similar trademark. The court ordered the stay without demanding Amazon to make any pre-deposit, although the company has promised to pay the damages if the appeal is eventually rejected.
The case is based on a 2020 lawsuit when UK-based Lifestyle Equities, the owner and operator of the BHPC brand, sued Amazon Technologies and Cloudtail India, a major seller on Amazon.in, alleging that they had sold clothing under Amazon's private label 'Symbol' that used marks deceptively similar to the BHPC trademark.
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Although Cloudtail owned up to sales of infringing products between 2015 and July 2020 and settled for a part of it, the mediation process did not work out and the court granted Rs 4.78 lakh in damages against Cloudtail. Amazon Technologies, which did not show up in court proceedings, was proceeded ex-parte.
In its February judgment, the single judge bench held Amazon outrightly liable, referring to its brand licencing and distribution agreements with Cloudtail, under which the seller was given vast rights to employ Amazon's branding. The court gave $5 million for Lifestyle's additional advertisement expenses in order to defend its brand, and $33.78 million as lost royalties, amounting to almost Rs 340 crore including litigation costs.
The decision was regarded as a milestone in Indian e-commerce law, pushing back against the traditional defence of online marketplaces as passive intermediaries. The court noted that Amazon's role as an active controller and influencer of sellers by virtue of its branding agreements preempted its intermediary status.
With the stay now granted, Amazon is able to breathe a sigh of relief as the battle in the higher courts on platform liability and trademark enforcement rages on.
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