The plaintiff purchased ten cans of milk powder labeled “self-owned” through a domestic cross-border e-commerce platform. After a long-term consumption, the infant appeared symptoms of dysplasia. Then, the plaintiff discovered that the milk powder was actually nutritional powder, instead of infant formula milk powder, and did not meet the nutritional content requirements of infant formulas in the national food safety standards. The plaintiff determined that the platform and product operators violated the Advertising Law, the Food Safety Law, and the Law for Consumer Rights and Interests Protection, so sued the e-commerce platform operator and the product operators, demanded them to refund of purchase, bear ten times compensation and personal injury losses.
After trial, the court held that the product involved the field of infant and young children formula food, and the cross-border e-commerce platform incorrectly translated the nutritional powder into infant formula milk powder, causing the plaintiff to purchase the wrong product, which in turn resulted in losses. The confusion and misleading behavior of the e-commerce platform has caused that the product shall be applicable to the food safety standard of infant formula. However, the product obviously cannot meet the standards of infant formula in the country of production or in China. According to Article 37 of the E-Commerce Law, “E-commerce platform operators shall bear the civil liabilities of commodity sellers or service providers for the businesses marked as self-owned.” Since the e-commerce platform failed to indicate the actual operator of self-owned commodities, the e-commerce platform should bear corresponding responsibilities. During the trial, the two parties reached a settlement agreement and the e-commerce platform compensated the plaintiff.
Cross-border e-commerce platform operators should truthfully determine the nature and type of commodities when selling overseas commodities, and should bear corresponding responsibilities if the translation of commodity information in a misleading manner causes consumers to purchase wrong products.
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