The public has been arguing for a long time over whether the claim of the "knowingly buying counterfeit" should be upheld, and the focus of the dispute is whether the "knowingly buying counterfeit" is a consumer, and whether the purchase is for profit or consumption. In the field of food consumption, the behavior of "knowing and buying fakes" is a popular saying for the masses to buy food knowing that it does not meet food safety standards. In practice, the situation of non-compliance with food safety standards is more complicated, such as the absence of Chinese labels on the outer packaging of imported pre-packaged food, and some consumers are still willing to buy and consume although they know that the food does not meet food safety standards. However, whether or not an article is known as "genuine" is not a necessary consideration for determining whether it belongs to a consumer. Therefore, it cannot be determined that those who "buy counterfeits knowingly" are not consumers. Motives are complex, multiple, and hidden, and are difficult to review and determine in practice, which is also an important reason for the inconsistent standards of judicial adjudication in the past. The Supreme People's Court issued a typical case, taking whether it exceeds the needs of daily consumption as the criterion for whether to support the purchaser's punitive damages claim, insisting on applying the punitive damages system stipulated in the Food Safety Law within the scope of "consumption", which is in line with the spirit of the relevant provisions of the Consumer Rights Protection and Food Safety Law, and is easy to operate and apply in judicial practice, which is conducive to eliminating disputes, unifying rules, and better playing the role of the punitive damages system in purifying the market and ensuring food safety.
*: Rule of Law** Ping An China Special Issue.
Author: Zhu Guangxin (The author is a researcher at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, deputy director of the Civil Law Research Office, and a reporter for the rule of law, Liu Jie).