The constitutionnal Council confirmed, Friday, October 21, the merits of the severe sanctions taken by the French authorities against Wish at the end of 2021: the attractively priced e-commerce site remains excluded from Google and Apple’s application stores as well as search engines. of research. Wish had attempted a first appeal before the administrative court of Paris, which ended in failure, before filing in July a priority question of constitutionality (QPC) based on freedom of expression and freedom of enterprise. It is on this QPC that the Constitutional Council has just ruled.
The State had chosen to sanction Wish following an investigation by the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF), made public in 2020, which denounced the high proportion of counterfeits on the shelves of the site. It included articles “presenting logos and distinctive signs similar to those of well-known registered trademarks” and 90% of the electrical devices analyzed were considered dangerous, as were 62% of costume jewellery, and 45% of toys.
The site remains accessible
After notifying the platform of the illegal nature of these items, the DGCCRF found that once removed these products often reappeared under another name. She called on Wish to comply and then felt that she had not received any “satisfactory response”paving the way for the sanctions of November 2021. Excluded from application stores and dereferenced, the merchant site remains accessible on French territory when you type its address in full in an Internet browser.
Wish is aware of the elements with which it is accused, as shown by a IPO file filed by the platform at the end of 2020, in which the risks associated with its sector of activity are described: “Our brand could suffer if our merchants engage in unethical or illegal practices, such as selling fraudulent or counterfeit products. »
The American company, based in San Francisco and now listed on Wall Streetappeared in 2020 in eighth place in the top 15 of the most frequented merchants in France, according to the Federation of e-commerce and distance selling. “She no longer appears in our top 20”let the World a spokesperson for the Federation of e-commerce and distance selling (Fevad), “but its fall started before the measures at the end of 2021”he says.