Online retailer Amazon (AMZN.O) may be deemed responsible for advertising of counterfeit Christian Louboutin shoes which found its way on to its platform, Europe’s top court said in a preliminary ruling on Thursday.

The EU court said it is now up to the two national courts to decide whether this is indeed the case.

Louboutin brought two cases against Amazon in a Belgian and a Luxembourg court in 2019, saying the company regularly displayed advertisements for red-soled shoes put on the market without Louboutin’s consent.

Louboutin’s signature red sole is registered as a trademark within the EU. Both courts had sought the guidance of the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

In its ruling on Thursday, the EU court said the world’s biggest online retailer Amazon, as an online sales platform, may be considered responsible for the intellectual property breaches involved in the advertisements of counterfeit products that feature Louboutin’s trademarked red sole.

That is because the presentation of the advertisements may give users of its website the impression that Amazon – rather than a third-party seller – is responsible for the advertisements and benefiting from them, the court said.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Thierry Van Innis, Louboutin’s lawyer, said the European court had followed the designer’s arguments “in every detail”.

“Amazon can be held accountable for the breaches as if the platform was itself the seller… Amazon will be forced to change their model and stop misleading the public by mixing up their own and third-party offers,” he told Reuters.

Van Innis said Louboutin was not currently seeking financial compensation. “We’re not talking money at this stage. We want the breaches to stop,” he said.

Popular short-video app TikTok is offering to operate more of its business at arm’s length and subject it to outside scrutiny as it tries to convince the U.S. government to allow it to remain under the ownership of Chinese technology company ByteDance, according to people familiar with the matter.

TikTok has been seeking to assure U.S. government departments and agencies for the last three years that the personal data of U.S. citizens cannot be accessed and its content cannot be manipulated by China’s Communist Party or any other entity under the influence of that country’s government.

Last year, President Joe Biden revoked an executive order by his predecessor Donald Trump to ban TikTok in the United States, but negotiations between his administration and the social media company continued over a potential deal that would address the security concerns.

U.S. lawmakers seeking to crack down on China as part of broader set of disputes over trade, intellectual property and human rights have seized on the security concerns over TikTok to pressure the White House to take a hard line.

TikTok has already unveiled several measures aimed at appeasing the U.S. government, including an agreement for Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) to store the data of the app’s users in the United States and a United States Data Security (USDS) division to oversee data protection and content moderation decisions. It has spent $1.5 billion on hiring and reorganization costs to build up that unit, according to a source familiar with the matter.

But some government officials, including at the U.S. Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, remain opposed to a security deal, according to the sources. These officials argue that TikTok’s users would continue to be vulnerable because the app would still rely for its technology on ByteDance, which also operates Chinese short-video app Douyin.

To overcome these hurdles, TikTok has sought to provide new layers of oversight to the U.S. government. It has expanded Oracle’s role to ensuring that TikTok’s technology infrastructure is separate from ByteDance, the sources said.

Oracle will review both app codes, which determine the look and feel of TikTok, and server codes, which provide functions such as search and recommendations, according to the sources. The reviews will occur at dedicated “transparency centers” visited by Oracle engineers, with the first one scheduled to open in Maryland in January, one of the sources added.

TikTok has also proposed to form a “proxy” board that would run the USDS division independent of ByteDance, the sources said. This division is headed on an interim basis by Andrew Bonillo, a former U.S Secret Service agent, and until a security deal with the U.S. is reached it reports to TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew.

The USDS board would have three members who would be screened by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a national security panel, the sources said. ByteDance would not have control over the board and its decisions even though it would pay for the USDS division’s operations, the sources added.

TikTok has been also seeking to hire independent auditors and monitors who would be paid by the company but report to CFIUS, according to the sources. It has sent out requests for proposals for some of the roles to companies and consultants and has set a deadline for responses in the first half of January.

The sources requested anonymity to discuss Oracle’s expanded role, the proposed proxy board and details of the hiring and spending at TikTok, which are reported here for the first time.

A TikTok spokeswoman declined to comment on specific concessions the company has made to the U.S. government but said that the solution to security concerns it put to CFIUS was “comprehensive.” She added that TikTok has not had any discussions with the U.S. government “on the substance of the proposed agreement” since the end of the summer.

“We have made substantial progress on implementing that solution over the past year, and look forward to completing that work to put these concerns to rest,” the TikTok spokeswoman said.

Oracle did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, declined to comment other than to say the panel was committed to safeguarding national security. The White House declined to comment on the CFIUS review of TikTok.

U.S officials involved in the talks have indicated that many of the voluntary measures TikTok is implementing to bolster its security may be part of any agreement to allow ByteDance to retain its ownership, one of the sources said. However, it is unclear whether Biden’s administration will eventually sign off on a security deal with TikTok.

The U.S. Treasury Department and the Department of Justice, which have been leading the negotiations with TikTok, have been open to a deal to avoid the kind of legal challenge from the company that bogged down Trump’s bid to force a divestment, the sources said.

The outcome will ultimately be determined by the White House, the sources added, because Biden will be called upon to adjudicate the arguments of the various government departments and agencies that are either supportive or dismissive of a deal.

Russia said on Thursday that supplies of U.S. Patriot missile systems to Ukraine, announced during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to Washington, would not help settle the conflict or prevent Russia from achieving its goals.

In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that there had been no signs of readiness for peace talks during Zelenskiy’s visit, proving that the United States was fighting a proxy war with Russia “to the last Ukrainian”.

Zelenskiy told the U.S. Congress on Wednesday that aid to his country was an investment in democracy as he invoked battles against the Nazis in World War Two to press for more assistance in the war against Russia.

Zelenskiy’s comments came as Republicans – some of whom have voiced increasing scepticism about sending so much aid to Ukraine – are set to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives from Democrats on Jan. 3.

The United States announced another $1.85 billion in military aid for Ukraine, including the Patriot air defence system to help it ward off barrages of Russian missiles.

Zelenskiy said the Patriot system was an important step in creating an air shield.

“This is the only way that we can deprive the terrorist state of its main instrument of terror – the possibility to hit our cities, our energy,” Zelenskiy told a White House news conference, standing next to President Joe Biden.

“We would like to get more Patriots … we are in war,” Zelenskiy told reporters at the White House.

Some Republicans have urged an end to aid and an audit to trace how allocated money has been spent.

Russia says it launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine on Feb. 24 to rid it of nationalists and protect Russian-speaking communities. Ukraine and the West describe Russia’s actions as an unprovoked war of aggression that has killed .

Congress is on the verge of approving an additional $44.9 billion in emergency military and economic assistance, on top of some $50 billion already sent to Ukraine this year as Europe’s biggest land conflict since World War Two drags on.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Washington was seeing no sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin was willing to engage in peacemaking.

Zelenskiy’s aide, Mykhailo Podolyak, said the United States had “finally pinpointed the baseline” in the conflict.

“1. Russia must lose. 2. No ‘territory in exchange for pseudo/world’ compromises. 3. Ukraine will receive all necessary military aid. As much as possible. 4. No one cares about Russia’s ‘talk to us’ hysteria…,” he wrote on Twitter.

Ukraine has come under repeated Russian strikes targeting its energy infrastructure in recent weeks, leaving millions without power or running water in the dead of winter.

Zelenskiy congratulated electrical workers for working round the clock, trying to keep the lights on as they marked Power Engineers’ Day on Thursday, a day after the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year.

“Even if the enemy can temporarily leave us without light, it will still never succeed in leaving us without the desire to make things right, to mend and restore to normal,” he said on Telegram. “…Together we will overcome any darkness.”

Serhiy Popko, the Kyiv city military administration chief, said the main problem was not power generation, but delivering electricity to households.

TASS news agency earlier cited Russia’s U.S. ambassador as saying that Zelenskiy’s visit to the United States confirmed that Washington’s statements about not wanting a conflict with Russia were empty words.

America’s provocative actions were leading to an escalation, the consequences of which were impossible to imagine, TASS cited Anatoly Antonov as saying.

Moscow said last week that Patriot systems, if delivered to Ukraine, would be a legitimate target for Russian strikes.

Zelenskiy joined a long list of world leaders to address joint meetings of the U.S. Senate and House, including British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, kings, queens and one pope.

Putin on Wednesday promised to give his military whatever it needs to prosecute the war and backed a plan to boost the size of the armed forces by more than 30%.

Related Galleries:

---

zelensky in washington 2022 – Google Search google.com/search?q=zelen…

zelensky in washington 2022 – Google Search google.com/search?q=zelen…