SINGAPORE – Louis Vuitton was awarded more than half a million dollars in damages from a Singapore Instagram seller accused of repeatedly peddling counterfeit luxury goods, after the nation’s highest court clarified how to calculate the trademark damages.
In a judgment issued on May 6, the Court of Appeal more than doubled the damages payable to French luxury house Louis Vuitton Malletier (LVM) from $200,000 to $510,000, finding that the seller had blatantly infringed its logos through the online sale and promotion of counterfeit products.
The seller was Mr Ng Hoe Seng, who operated online stores under the Instagram handles “emcase_sg” and later “emcrafts_sg”.
Court documents showed that the accounts advertised products such as phone cases, watch straps, passport covers, pouches and cigarette cases bearing signs identical to well-known Louis Vuitton logos without the company’s consent. There were nine categories of offending goods in total.
LVM made trap purchases of the products in 2022 and 2023 before suing Mr Ng for trademark infringement.
In November 2023, the High Court ruled in favour of LVM. It found that Mr Ng had committed at least 121 instances of infringement involving 13 registered Louis Vuitton trademarks used across nine categories of counterfeit goods including spectacle cases, passport covers and key cases.
The judgement was entered by default against Mr Ng, who did not show up in court nor contest the proceedings.
The High Court went on to award LVM $200,000 in statutory damages under the Trade Marks Act. But LVM appealed, arguing that the damages were too low and should be calculated separately for every infringed trademark, an approach that could have pushed the award into the millions.
The dispute went before the Court of Appeal which ruled how damages should be calculated in counterfeit trademark cases.
Its judges disagreed with LVM’s interpretation of the Trade Marks Act, which argued that damages should be calculated separately for every infringed trademark.
Instead, in a written judgment delivered by Justice of the Court of Appeal Hri Kumar Nair, the three-judge court, said the law did not expressly provide for damages to be assessed on a “per mark” basis, adding that Parliament would have used “clear and unambiguous language” in the law if that had been its intention.
Instead, they ruled that damages should be assessed according to each type of counterfeit product involved.
They added that Singapore’s statutory damages regime was meant to compensate trademark owners and deter infringement, but not punish offenders.
Still, the Court the Appeal found Mr Ng’s conduct serious enough to justify a much higher award than the High Court had granted.
In discussing the need for general deterrence, its judges pointed to “the prevalence of counterfeit luxury goods and the ease with which online platforms facilitate infringement”, noting that social media and e-commerce platforms have made such sales easier and more far-reaching.
In assessing the need for specific deterrence, the court found several aggravating factors in Mr Ng’s conduct, describing the infringement as “highly flagrant” and calling him a “recalcitrant infringer”.
The judges noted that he continued advertising counterfeit Louis Vuitton products even after receiving a cease-and-desist letter in March 2023 and after an injunction had been issued against him.
Court documents also showed that after his original Instagram account “emcase_sg” became inactive, he continued selling the offending goods through another account, “encrafts_sg”.
During the dispute, he also switched the second account to private mode, allowing only approved followers to view the page.
In recalculating damages, the Court of Appeal grouped the counterfeit products into categories and assigned amounts based on factors such as the apparent scale of sales activity, the price gap between counterfeit and genuine products, and whether LVM sold similar items.
LVM was eventually awarded $510,000 in statutory damages, including $70,000 each for counterfeit phone cases, key cases and pouches, and $30,000 for cigarette cases. The Court of Appeal also ordered Mr Ng to pay Louis Vuitton $40,000 in legal costs for the appeal, in addition to the revised damages award.
