Shein is now copying Temu’s copyright lawsuit

The Shein complaint about Temu kicks off with a bang, accusing Temu of being “an unlawful enterprise built on counterfeiting, theft of trade secrets, infringement of intellectual property rights, and fraud” in just the first sentence. But I guess you have to go big when the lawsuit against you accuses you of using “Mafia-style” intimidation tactics.

It gets worse, Shein alleges. Temu isn’t a marketplace at all. “It controls every aspect of its seller’s activity,” the complaint says. “It directs what products they can list and the prices for which they can sell; encourages them to infringe the intellectual property rights of others; and even prevents them from removing their products from Temu’s website after they have admitted to infringement.” I would like to be clear: I am still in the first paragraph of this complaint, a paragraph which uses bitchy scare-quotes around every incidence of calling Temu a “marketplace.”

“This relentless pursuit of low prices is central to its business model and competitive strategy but its low prices are achieved by any means,” Shein writes of Temu in its lawsuit today. I wonder who else we could say that about!

Among Temu’s alleged tactics: