Shein and Temu Are Fighting Over a Broken Market -By Fransiscus Nanga Roka

The third global patent saga in the Shein vs. Temu corporate grudge match That interpretation is dangerously shallow. This war is also a showcase for how hyper-fast e-commerce can make weapons out of intellectual property, platform immunity, supplier reliance and cross-border corporate frontiers, all as regulators continue looking at the last season.

The who were Roadget Business and Shein Distribution UK, the entities behind fast-fashion giant Shein and Temu operator Whaleco. The what merges an antitrust counterclaim with copyright litigation. WHEN do you think the clandestine activities proceeded from earlier US proceedings, to London’s High Court and Britain’s Competition Appeal Tribunal? The when enters its defining moment on March 3, 2027 – the CAT will enter a three-and-a-half-week competition trial period around that date. The why is control over the suppliers, the data and digital infrastructure behind global discount commerce. How allegedly consists of either or all three: photographs that are copied, coercive exclusivity (and litigation treated as a weapon to employ against competitors).

Shein accused Temu of facilitating the “industrial-scale” use of thousands of copyrighted product photographs uploaded by third-party merchants. Temu denied liability and counterattacked, alleging that Shein abused market power by pressuring Chinese manufacturers not to supply its rival.

Temu’s allegations are extraordinary. It claims Shein used “mafia-style” tactics: summoning supplier representatives to purported meetings, detaining and interrogating them for hours, seizing electronic devices and extracting commercially sensitive information. It also alleges that suppliers faced punitive sanctions or termination if they traded through Temu.

These remain allegations not judicial findings. But if proven, the conduct would be more than aggressive contracting. It could represent the conversion of supply chain dependence into private economic coercion.

On August 13, 2026, Mrs Justice Kelyn Bacon dismissed Shein’s UK copyright case. The judgment did not declare that copying photographs is lawful. Rather, Shein abandoned its direct-reproduction case because Temu’s relevant servers were outside Britain. The court also found that Temu had not authorized merchants’ infringement and lacked the knowledge required to lose the statutory “hosting” defence. Temu’s terms prohibited infringing uploads.

Temu additionally succeeded on a counterclaim concerning listings removed under an earlier injunction where Shein did not own the relevant copyright; damages remain to be assessed. Calling this complete corporate exoneration would therefore be misleading. It was a jurisdictional and intermediary-liability victory—not a judicial blessing for counterfeit commerce.

The more consequential battle now sits before the CAT. Temu seeks damages for alleged violations of Chapters I and II of the Competition Act 1998, covering anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominance. The competition issues were transferred from the High Court in July 2025. The CAT confirms that liability, causation and potential declaratory and injunctive relief remain unresolved.

Regulators should not wait for these corporations to litigate public policy through private warfare. Britain, the European Union, the United States and China should coordinate investigations into supplier exclusivity, coercive inspections and algorithmic seller discrimination. Platforms must verify commercial sellers, preserve upload records, disclose repeat infringers and operate independently audited notice-and-appeal systems. Courts should scrutinize takedown abuse as rigorously as copyright infringement.

Supply contracts should also prohibit forced device searches, retaliatory termination and exclusivity unsupported by objective necessity. Small manufacturers need confidential reporting channels and protection against commercial retaliation.

Neither Shein nor Temu should play the victim-in-chief. The hostages are the suppliers squeezed between platforms, the creators buried under a mountain of disposable inventory, the workers crushed under unrealizable production cycles and consumers led to think savage exploitation is just a price discount.

This is not simply a war over cheap clothing. This is a test of whether private empires have primacy over competition law in the face of digital scale.

Fransiscus Nanga Roka

Faculty of Law University 17 August 1945 Surabaya and Managing Partner Law Firm Victorious Indonesia