SINGAPORE, July 6 — A Singapore-based Instagram seller who marketed counterfeit Louis Vuitton products as authentic and ignored a lawsuit has been ordered to pay the luxury fashion house S$200,000 (RM662,500) in damages for trademark infringement.
The Straits Times reported today that Ng Hoe Seng, who operated through the Instagram accounts “emcase_sg” and “emcrafts_sg”, sold fake phone cases, passport covers, card holders and purses at a fraction of the price of genuine Louis Vuitton goods.
For example, a counterfeit passport cover was priced at S$159 — compared to the authentic version, which retails for between S$560 and S$945.
Louis Vuitton Malletier (LVM) discovered the counterfeit operation in July 2022 and conducted a sting, buying S$2,100 worth of items through Ng’s first account.
After confirming the items were fake, the company issued a cease-and-desist letter in March 2023.
But Ng simply switched to another Instagram account and resumed operations.
A second undercover purchase led to LVM filing a trademark infringement lawsuit in August 2023. Ng failed to participate in any part of the court proceedings.
On November 30, 2023, the Singapore High Court ruled in LVM’s favour. On July 2, Justice Dedar Singh Gill awarded damages of S$200,000, far short of the S$2.9 million LVM had claimed based on 29 alleged infringements.
“The claimant’s proposed quantum of S$2.9 million is grossly excessive,” the judge wrote, as reported by The Straits Times.
While the statutory cap for each infringement is S$100,000, the judge limited the award to nine categories of goods, making the maximum possible S$900,000.
Justice Gill also cast doubt on the financial harm to LVM, noting that “knock-offs of luxury goods are usually not substitutable with the genuine goods”.
In his judgment, the judge described Ng as “a recalcitrant infringer” who engaged in “deceptive marketing tactics”, including reposting rave reviews from customers and enlisting influencers to promote the fake goods as authentic.
Ng had also claimed the items were “upcycled” from genuine Louis Vuitton material — a claim the court dismissed as “a lie upon a lie”.
According to The Straits Times, Justice Gill criticised Ng’s behaviour, including making his account private while allowing followers to continue viewing posts, calling it “an attempt… to mask his infringing activities”.
He warned that online infringers pose a unique enforcement challenge.
“An online retailer can avail himself of a hydra-like approach… even if one head is sliced off, another can easily spring up.”
Ng was unrepresented in court. LVM was represented by lawyers Ravindran Muthucumarasamy, Chan Wenqiang and Neo Xuan Hao Edwin of Ravindran Associates.
Despite the court victory, it remains unclear whether LVM will recover the S$200,000.
The Straits Times said, as of July 3, Ng’s business, EMCASE SG, has been deregistered and both Instagram accounts mentioned in court have disappeared.
However, a similarly named account — “emcrafts.sg” — remains active and appears to be selling Louis Vuitton-branded items.