The Dark Side Of Platforms, Profiteers Of The Covid-19 Crisis

Published date07 June 2021
Subject MatterCorporate/Commercial Law, Criminal Law, Coronavirus (COVID-19), Contracts and Commercial Law, White Collar Crime, Anti-Corruption & Fraud, Operational Impacts and Strategy
Law FirmHaas Avocats

Online scams, especially on e-commerce platforms, are sadly commonplace.

In 2018, we already talked about the abuses of certain online platforms and the means deployed by the French Direction Générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes (DGCCRF), the General Directorate for Competition Policy, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control of the French Ministry of the Economy, to deal with fraudulent practices on airline ticket sales or even on subscription traps.

In 2019, in a report entitled "Marketplaces, too many non-compliant and dangerous products", the DGCCRF published the results of several investigations conducted on eight popular marketplaces such as Amazon, Ebay, Cdiscount, Aliexpress or Wish.

The report denounced in particular the fact that e-commerce favored international sales of products that sometimes did not comply with European standards, or even were dangerous. Thus, after analyzing 152 products, 43% were dangerous and 24% did not comply with the regulations in force. This concerned jewelry, cosmetics, lighters, toys or even electrical garlands. In other words, two thirds of these objects should never have been sold.

This is surely one of the reasons why the French government opened negotiations with major online platform players in order to make them sign, during 2019, a charter of good conduct.

Nine sales platforms have signed this charter, including Boulanger, Cdiscount, Ebay and Fnac. We can, however, note that Amazon didn't wish to be among the signatories.

At the end of 2019, a report published by the French Ministry of the Economy already announced positive results for this charter. According to this report:

  • Contractual relations between marketplaces and sellers became more systematic;
  • The legibility of the conditions of use of online marketplaces has improved.

However, the onset of the health crisis and the sudden change in consumer purchasing habits (due to the closure of non-essential businesses) has led to the emergence of new fraudulent practices, likely to threaten consumer safety.

  1. The health crisis, a closely watched source of profit

Many brands have changed their communication strategy in order to adapt to the health crisis: some wipes have suddenly become effective against bacteria AND against COVID-19, while some soap brands emphasize the effectiveness of their product against the virus.

If taking advantage of the current situation remains legal, some have not hesitated to implement unfair -...

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