Estee Lauder sues Walmart, alleging sale of counterfeits

Estee Lauder sued Walmart in California federal court over allegations the big-box retailer sold counterfeit beauty products on its website and didn’t do enough to ensure only authorized and authentic merchandise was offered to consumers. 

Estee Lauder said it purchased, inspected or tested a number of products sold on Walmart.com that used the Le Labo, La Mer, Clinique, Aveda, Tom Ford and Estee Lauder trademarks but were determined to be fakes, according to the suit, filed Monday.

The products include counterfeit versions of Estee Lauder’s Advanced Night Repair serum, a Le Labo fragrance, a Clinique eye cream, a La Mer lotion, an Aveda hair brush and a Tom Ford fragrance. 

It’s unclear when Estee Lauder bought and tested the products but the suit comes several months after CNBC published an investigation into counterfeit beauty products and fraud on Walmart.com.

Two of the counterfeit products cited in CNBC’s investigation — Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repair serum and Clinique Smart Clinical Repair Wrinkle Correcting Eye Cream — were also mentioned in Estee Lauder’s lawsuit. It’s unclear if the products cited in the suit are the same counterfeits CNBC provided to Estee Lauder. 

Estee Lauder and Walmart didn’t immediately return requests for comment. 

While the products were sold by third-party sellers on Walmart’s online marketplace, Estee Lauder said the company played an active role in facilitating those sales to shoppers in its suit. The legacy beauty company called Walmart’s conduct “extreme, outrageous, fraudulent … despicable and harmful.” 

The counterfeit products were promoted and advertised to shoppers on the platform, Estee Lauder’s trademarks were used in search engine optimization tools to drive traffic to the listings and Walmart profited from the sales, the complaint stated. 

Further, “a person shopping on Walmart.com would have reasonably believed that Walmart, and not third-party sellers, was the seller” of the item, which could have caused confusion among shoppers, the complaint states. 

At the heart of CNBC’s investigation into Walmart’s online marketplace was the steps the company took, or didn’t take, to vet its third-party sellers and the products they were offering to prevent fraud and the sale of fakes on the platform. 

In its complaint, Estee Lauder said Walmart promoted the “reputation and professionalism” of the sellers permitted to operate on the platform but said the retailer actually does “very little to ensure that only…