Issue #59: Game Over
Welcome to the 59th edition of OIA!
Here are the latest 🌶 headlines in APAC:
South Korea: South Korean Parliament passes a bill to appoint a special council to investigate its president
Ling Yah
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It’s MINE
6E matters, if you’re in India.
🍿 What Happened?
IndiGo, India’s largest airline with a 60% domestic market share, has just launched a legal assault against Mahindra Electric over the seemingly innocuous digits '6E' – a trademark that the airline has meticulously cultivated over the past 18 years.
At the heart of this legal drama is Mahindra's upcoming electric vehicle, the MahindraBE 6E (which they have since decided to rename as BE 6), which is set to launch in February 2025.
IndiGo argues that Mahindra's use of '6E' threatens to erode its carefully constructed brand identity, which spans everything from in-flight magazines to advertising and co-branded credit cards.
The airline's whooping 48-page lawsuit even alleges that Mahindra has "deliberately tried to associate themselves" with the aviation industry by claiming that their car is shaped like a cockpit!
👀 Thoughts
While trademark disputes are common in India, legal disputes between major PLCs are rare. So this is going to be a tantalising case to keep an eye on!
Showdown in India?!
India's Competition Commission (CCI) is going after the likes of Amazon and Flipkart?!
🍿 What Happened?
The saga began in January 2020 when the Delhi Vyapar Mahasangh, a traders' association, first complained about preferential treatment on platforms like Amazon and Flipkart.
After a four-year investigation, the CCI announced in August 2024 that Amazon and Flipkart had breached India’s antitrust laws and were found to have systematically favoured select sellers, manipulating search results to boost certain vendors' visibility. The probe also uncovered a complex web of collaboration, implicating smartphone giants like Samsung and Vivo in exclusive online product launches that potentially breached competition regulations.
👀 TL;DR
The regulatory body is now taking its fight to the Supreme Court, seeking to consolidate 24 separate lawsuits designed to obstruct its investigation into alleged anti-competitive practices.
With e-commerce sales in India projected to skyrocket from $57 billion to $160 billion by 2028, one wonders: Who really controls the digital marketplace's invisible hand?
Game Over
Gamers FTW!
🍿 What Happened?
Nexon is a South Korean game developer behind the likes of MapleStory.
Back in 2010, MapleStory introduced a probabilistic item called ‘Cube’, which would allegedly allow players to enhance their characters’ abilities by rolling for three random options. Players began to voice their suspicions when they failed to obtain a ‘win’ after spending tens of millions of won.
One particular MapleStory player named Kim, headed to the district court to obtain a refund of the 11 million won ($7,879) he spent on MapleStory. The district court ruled in favour of Nexon.
Unsatisfied, Kim appealed and the appeals court ruled in January 2023 that Nexon should refund 570,000 won, about 5 percent of the requested amount, to Kim.
👀 Now
The Supreme Court has upheld the appeal court’s decision, marking the first time that a court has sided with a gamer in a tussle over in-game loot boxes!
And mind you, Nexon’s woes haven’t ended just yet as the Korea Fair Trade Commission have already fined Nexon 11.6 billion won (after finding that Nexon had altered the probabilities so that there was a 0% chance of the Cube being obtained), with the company agreeing to compensate approximately 800,000 users for its intentional and active fraudulent behaviour.
Spotlight: Idza Hajar bt Ahmad Idzam
Full time gamer, accidental lawyer
Food Reveal
Time for a wholesome meal?
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