A fine of 15,000 euros has been imposed on Luxury Helsinki, which sells used branded accessories and bags. According to the market court, the reports made about the competitor’s Instagram posts were not justified.
Luxury Helsinki received a fine of 15,000 euros from the market court. Jenni Gästgivar
The Market Court has issued its decision in a case concerning the use of subject tags, i.e. hashtags, in social media.
A company called Luxury Helsinki had made several reports about a competing company because it had used the tags #luxury and #helsinki in its Instagram posts.
According to the market court, the reports were unfounded, which is why it ordered Luxury Helsingin to withdraw the reports it made to social giant Metal, under threat of a fine of 15,000 euros.
The competitor’s account was closed
According to Oy Trade Fairly Ltd, which maintained the lovebags.fi account on Instagram, Luxury Helsinki made ten reports about the company’s social media publications in September 2023, claiming that they infringed Luxury Helsinki’s trademarks.
Trade Fairly says that it has used generic words describing its products and services on its Instagram account by adding the subject tags #luxury and #helsinki together with other similar tags to its updates. It denies having used the expressions in the same subject identifier or even in consecutive subject identifiers.
According to Trade Fairly, its Instagram account lovebags.fi was first suspended and then deleted. Later, however, the account was restored. Nowadays, the company uses the account lovebags_.
Luxury Helsinki stated that it cannot influence how Meta reacts to the reports made. It claimed that Trade Fairly also violated the service’s terms of service on its Instagram account, which it considered a possible reason for the account’s removal.
– Luxury Helsingin’s reports have not in themselves been the reason for the deletion of the account, the company stated in its response.
“Can be considered an improper procedure”
The Market Court considered it likely that Luxury Helsingi did not have sufficient grounds to report Trade Fairly’s Instagram account based on the alleged trademark right.
– Consequently, the Market Court considers it likely that the unfounded reporting described above can be considered an inappropriate procedure in business activities, it stated.
The decision is not legally binding, so it is possible to appeal.
The incident was reported earlier Evening News.
Source: Market law