Plaintiff Liu Pengfei, as the operator of online store "Wujin Building Materials Business Department" on the e-platform Taobao, mainly engaged in sales of hardware, building materials, electrical appliances, stationery, daily necessities and other commodities. Defendant Wuhan Jinniu Economic Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jinniu Company") entrusted defendants Hangzhou Wuxin Network Technology Co., Ltd. and Wuhu Huide Intellectual Property (hereinafter collectively referred to as "Three Defendants") to provide network rights protection services and complaint services. From February 2018 to March 2020, the plaintiff's shop had received complaints from Jinniu Company for 8 times. The reasons for the complaints included selling fake goods and using Jinniu Company's trademark and brand name without authorization. The plaintiff eventually appealed to Chongqing No.5 Intermediate Court, claiming an immediate stop of the malicious complaints and compensation for economic losses of 3 million yuan. 

The court of first instance held that the malicious complaint in this case is an unfair competition behavior, and the infringement and unfair competition behavior in the field of e-commerce should be adjudicated by the e-commerce law. The misconduct of obligee should be adjudged based on the handling result of the complaints by the operators of the e-commerce platform. 

First of all, the court deemed that the complaint behavior of Jinniu Company had subject malice. Malicious complaint indicates a scenario where the notifier wrongly or intentionally sends the repeated false/misleading messages, knowing that he has no intellectual property rights basis, or where the obligee wrongly sends notice and does not withdraw or correct it in time, but keeps submitting the wrong notice, causing losses to the operators in the platform. 

Objectively, the first two complaints of Jinniu Company were denied by the plaintiff and the denials were accepted after being reviewed by the platform. Jinniu Company should have known the ground of the denial via the system, but failed to render further evidence of the infringement. Instead, Jinniu Company confounded the first two complaints with a complaint of the other goods so as to initiate a third complaint, and then submitted a large number of contradictory and ambiguous complaints. 

Subjectively speaking, Jinniu Company knew that its notification was wrong, and did not take any measures for evidence preservation. It only tried to stop the so-called infringement by repeatedly initiating complaints, which obstructed the plaintiff's normal business activities, with obvious malice. Jinniu Company knows or should know its misconduct, but neither withdraws nor corrects the wrong messages in time, or changes the strategy and method of safeguarding rights. Therefore, the behaviors of Jiniu Company obstructs the plaintiff's normal business activities, and interferes the sales activities of the plaintiff, which violates the principle of good faith and business ethics. 

Also, the malicious complaints of Jinniu Company constitute unfair competition, as it violates the provisions of the E-commerce Law. The malicious complaints not only cause the Taobao e-commerce platform to spend a lot of time and resources to review and audit, but also increase the operating cost of the platform. It also forces the plaintiff to spend a lot of time, energy and money to deal with the complaints, and may even result in bankruptcy of the plaintiff, hence disrupting the market competition order. The complained products can't be sold or demonstrated normally for a long time due to the complaints of infringement, which sabotages the consumers' will or judgment to choose the goods, and damages the legitimate rights and interests of competitors or consumers. 

The three defendants shared the joint intention of infringement in the stage of their malicious complaints, which constitutes joint infringement. Jinniu Company is the implementer of malicious complaints in the whole case, and bears tort liability for malicious complaints, while the other defendants bear joint liability according to the specific stages of malicious complaints. 

The court comprehensively considered the defendant's subjective fault, circumstances and consequences, as well as the actual losses of the plaintiff, including the decline in turnover and the damaged goodwill that were difficult to be recovered, then calculated the basic economic loss totaling 200,000 yuan, and deemed that the Jinniu Company shall bear the double compensation for the plaintiff's economic losses and the reasonable expenses paid for safeguarding rights, totaling 400,000 yuan, and other defendants shall bear joint liabilities, totaling 50,000 yuan and 350,000 yuan respectively. 

Jinniu Company refused to accept the complaint and appealed to Chongqing Higher Court. The court of second instance held that there was nothing improper about the ruling of Jinniu Company's malicious complaint and unfair competition, and there was nothing improper about the compensation amount of the first-instance judgment, hence rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.