$164 Million | Tory Burch Counterfeit Lawsuit

In the past, I’ve reported on the horrific ramifications of counterfeit luxury goods- it’s a practice that’s widely responsible for the proliferation of arms trafficking, drug trafficking, and child labor exploitation. With the dawn of  the internet, creating counterfeits has become surprisingly lucrative and evading capture or identification surprisingly easy. Until Tory Burch came along and became a woman ballet-flat wearing renegade, determined to make someone answer for ripping off her designs. And recently, she succeeded. A N.Y. Federal Court awarded Tory Burch LLC $164 million judgment against online counterfeiters, the largest judgment issued to a fashion firm against criminals selling its fake counterparts.

Tory Burch Reva Ballet Flat- $159 from authorized retailer, but from a counterfeiter, $49.99

Burch won’t actually see that sum from the criminals she sued, but that doesn’t matter. What she and her legal team can now do is go after the third parties who are facilitating the sales of those fake goods. These include sites like PayPal, which transfers payments from consumers to counterfeiters, making their criminal business possible. In addition, Burch won ownership of all the known domain names which currently sell her fake goods, as well as the right to claim ownership of any future domain names created for that purpose, without having to enact another lawsuit.

It’s a huge blow to the counterfeit industry which has for the better part of the last ten years run wild, hiding behind the anonymity of IP addresses and emails. Not only do their ill-gotten gains fund the likes of terrorist and drug cartels, but the fake industry rips off about $250 billion from the luxury brands they’re imitating. True, it’s not so important that someone like Tory Burch the individual  personally holds on to every last penny of her unfathomable fortune, but when you think about how many people she employs, how many families count on her for income, for medical insurance, for peace of mind- don’t you want them to keep everything they’ve earned? So do I.