A Wren Says

Last year three hopeful Birkin customers filed a lawsuit against Hermes. They alleged the company was violating U.S. Antitrust law by compelling customers to run up a purchase history to be considered for Birkin bags. Last month, a federal judge dismissed the case for the second time.

In the lawsuit they claimed Hermes was using a tying agreement. But for the second judge said they didn’t give enough evidence that this was true. If you have to have purchase history generally, that isn’t tying the Birkin to any other specific product. They also didn’t demonstrate that Hermes had market power. Just selling a lot of products doesn’t mean you have monopoly level power in the market. And finally, they could prove these practices caused any damage to customers.

When I first wrote about this case in 2024, I thought it was interesting that they were focused so much on restriction of competition instead of taking a consumer protection approach. They chose to use the Sherman Act. That seems to have hurt them in the end. Their only supporting evidence that was too old or too opinion-based to support any of their claims. How do you really prove market power in the luxury space?

This never went to court, so it’s not actually setting any precedent. However, it might shape public discussions around Hermes. It’s officially been rejected their little game is a problem. Hermes can make decisions about how it sells its products. Will social media keep up writing about the Hermes game or will everyone finally move on?