Legal Regulation of Cross-Border Relations in E-commerce in the context of Parallel Imports

Abstract

The sale of goods on marketplaces, including foreign trade activities, is actively spreading in the modern world and provokes competition with classical (offline) trade. Marketplaces, as electronic trading platforms in a broader sense, are often interested in implementing new, stable approaches to the sale of goods, including cross-border foreign trade activities, in order to offer online buyers a wide range of goods at competitive prices. Parallel import is one of the strategies used by sellers and business owners on marketplaces to achieve this goal. Since foreign trade using parallel import tools involves, in fact, the resale on the domestic market of goods that are produced abroad and imported for sale in a particular State without the consent of the right-holder, as well as marked with the trademark of the right-holder or in which other results of intellectual activity are expressed (relevant from the point of view of the problem of exhaustion of exclusive rights, in particular, the objects of patent rights), cross-border opportunities of marketplaces seem to be the best place for the sale of goods imported by means of parallel imports. At the same time, the peculiarities of cross-border electronic commerce give rise to the latest challenges related to the proliferation of counterfeit products, violation of the intellectual rights of third parties, the requirements of the legislation of the country of sale on advertising, protection of competition, protection of consumer rights.