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E-Commerce Sellers Should Be Preemptive to Mitigate Effects of Account Suspensions for IP Infringement

By Jonathan Bick
May 01, 2022

The ascendency of selling via e-commerce channels is due in part to how quickly a seller may access an e-commerce platform. Lamentably, e-commerce channel providers' suspension of sellers' accounts associated with alleged intellectual property infringement is equally fast, and suspension remediation is time-consuming and costly. Consequently, e-commerce sellers should contemplate pre-emptive legal and business arrangements to ameliorate potential e-commerce account suspensions consequences.

Consider Amazon, for example, in response to a deluge of infringement claims, Amazon has implemented an aggressive seller account suspension policy. This policy is disclosed in the Amazon seller's account terms of service agreement.

Amazon's seller account agreement includes terms that authorize Amazon to suspend a seller's account for virtually any reason, including for its own "convenience with 30 days' advance notice." A seller's account suspension or termination may be immediate if a legal difficulty (such as intellectual property infringement) exposes Amazon to direct liability.

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