Amazon Challenges Delhi HC’s Rs 340-Cr Copyright Infringement Verdict

Amazon India has challenged the Delhi High Court’s (HC) February order directing the company to pay Rs 340 crore in damages for copyright infringement, according to a report. In February 2025, the Delhi HC instructed the US-based company to compensate for the damages caused to the plaintiff.

The lawsuit was filed by Lifestyle Equities in 2020 against the tech giant for selling products bearing its ‘Beverly Hills Polo Club’ trademark. The company had approached the judiciary seeking compensation for damages from Amazon Technologies, an entity of the Amazon group. After hearing arguments from both sides, the court passed a judgment in February, 2025, against Amazon Technologies, finding it guilty of selling products with the ‘Beverly Hills Polo Club’ trademark.

Amazon’s Legal Challenge

Amazon moved to the Delhi High Court’s division bench, alleging that Lifestyle Equities had failed to produce any evidence before the single bench proving that the US-based tech giant had infringed upon the trademark it claimed to own. Amazon argued that the division bench should conduct a detailed examination of the matter, as per the report.

The Delhi HC’s division bench, led by Justice Hari Shankar, has posted the matter for further hearing on Wednesday.

Background

THE 2018 CASE:

This is not the first time Lifestyle Equities has taken Amazon to court. In 2018, Beverly Hills Polo Club filed a lawsuit against Amazon Seller Services for selling counterfeit products like belts, perfumes, apparel, accessories, and watches on its platform. In its verdict, the Delhi HC ordered Amazon to delist the retailers selling counterfeit products under the lifestyle brand’s trademark.

Among the retailers allegedly selling the counterfeit products was Cloudtail—a company in which Amazon previously held a stake. Lifestyle Equities claimed that Cloudtail was involved in the widespread sale of counterfeit products.

AMAZON TECHNOLOGIES WAS NOT PART OF THE 2018 CASE:

In 2020, Lifestyle Equities filed a fresh lawsuit in the Delhi HC. During the hearing, Amazon Seller Services’ lawyers pointed out that this was not the first such case filed by the company and argued that the new suit was “mala fide,” as the 2018 order already covered similar violations. The 2018 order had directed Amazon to take down URLs of products that infringed the Beverly Hills Polo Club trademark. During the hearing, Cloudtail said that it would launch an investigation into the matter and further delist such sellers from Amazon and other platforms.

However, Lifestyle Equities argued that the seller in the new case—Amazon Technologies—was not part of the 2018 lawsuit. As a result, the HC granted an ex-parte ad interim injunction, temporarily restraining Amazon Technologies from selling or advertising products infringing on the Beverly Hills Polo Club trademark. (The court issues an ex-parte ad interim injunction when the opposing party is not present.)

ASKED TO DISCLOSE SALES:

In August 2022, the Delhi HC ordered Amazon Seller Services to disclose all sales of products bearing the Beverly Hills Polo Club trademark. The court stated that while Amazon may consider itself an intermediary, it could not claim confidentiality over sales figures. It also directed the company to reveal its relationship with Amazon Technologies, noting that both are part of the same parent company.

WHAT WAS CLOUDTAIL’S ROLE?

Cloudtail agreed to a decree of injunction and to compensate Lifestyle Equities for reasonable damages in September 2022. Its counsel urged the court to refer both parties to the Delhi HC’s Mediation and Conciliation Centre (MCC) for an amicable resolution.

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However, mediation attempts failed. In 2023, Cloudtail’s lawyers argued that the company had stopped using the disputed trademark after July 2020 and had sold products under it only between 2015 and July 2020. They disclosed that Cloudtail made Rs 23,92,420 in sales from such products, with a 20% profit margin.

Cloudtail’s counsel asked the court to award damages to the brand’s holding company based on these figures. They also argued that the court should only hold Cloudtail responsible, as Amazon had no involvement in its decision to sell trademarked products. They said that as per Cloudtail’s agreement with Amazon, the retailer is liable to indemnify the e-commerce platform for any loss arising from any breach on its part.

The Delhi HC granted Lifestyle Equities Rs 4,78,484 (20% of the profit margin) and acknowledged Cloudtail’s responsibility. However, the court clarified that this did not prevent Lifestyle Equities from seeking damages from Amazon Technologies. Lawyers representing Amazon Seller Service argued that the court should remove their clients from the lawsuit, as Lifestyle Equities has not claimed any compensation from them.

Why it matters?

The US-based tech giant has faced scrutiny in the past over its retail practices. A 2021 Reuters report revealed that Cloudtail and Appario were preferred sellers on Amazon’s platform, receiving discounted fees and exclusive deals from major manufacturers like Apple. Together, they accounted for 35% of Amazon’s sales revenue in India in early 2019.

Another report from 2021 revealed that the e-commerce platform and Cloudtail made counterfeited top-selling products using data that was not available to other sellers. This gave the retailer a competitive edge over its competitors.

The company has also been taking action against entities that have filed copyright infringement claims against its retailers. In March 2023, Amazon’s Counterfeit Crimes Unit (CCU) filed multiple lawsuits against “bad actors” that “submitted thousands of false copyright infringement claims” against the tech giant’s retail partners in order to get them delisted from the platform. The company said that the false claims were an attempt to “reduce customer choice,” harm the listed retailers, and damage the integrity of the e-commerce platform.