German shoemaker Birkenstock gets divorce from Amazon

Birkenstock has terminated its business relations with Amazon, accusing it of breaking the law. From January 1, Birkenstock will cease trading with the online retail giant within the EU, citing a breakdown in trust between the two parties.

In a statement issued on Monday, Birkenstock claimed there has been a series of violations of the law on Amazon’s Marketplace platform, which the online retailer failed to prevent. Birkenstock said on a number of occasions, it filed complaints that counterfeit products of poor quality, which infringed the company’s trademark rights and misled the consumers regarding the origins of goods that, were being made available on the platform.

Birkenstock argues that Amazon did not foster a “trusting business relationship” or try to prevent these types of infringements.

Additionally, the footwear brand pointed out that no binding statement has been made to the effect that no more counterfeit Birkenstock products would be offered for sale through Amazon Marketplace. Instead, Birkenstock said there recent months brought further legal violations of a different nature, which Amazon also failed to proactively prevent.

In 2016, Birkenstock had cancelled its contract with the U.S. branch of Amazon out of concerns that its brand was not being adequately protected against an "abundance of fake products". In turn, Amazon attempted to evade the boycott by shoring up its supply from other U.S. wholesalers.
However, a ruling by the European Court of Justice on Dec. 6 confirmed the right of producers of luxury products to forbid trading partners to sell produce via third party platforms, such as Amazon, to protect a firm's image of exclusivity.

Birkenstock was established in 1774 and has been owned by the same family for six generations. The Neustadt/Wied-based firm employs 3,500 staff and sells around 25 million pairs of shoes per year.