Beijing's famous Silk Street market is gathering evidence of "entrapment" against five international fashion companies in the dispute over the sale of fake brand-name goods.

General manager Wang Zili said earlier this week the market will sue Chanel, Prada, Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Gucci for denigrating the market's reputation with allegations that fake prestige brands are sold openly there.

Wang claimed the market could not be held accountable for the allegedly fake goods that the five companies claimed they bought there.

A large number of foreign and Chinese people flock to the market every day and some of them had bought fake goods under the table, but this practice could not be controlled by market managers, Wang said.

Managers had taken a series of measures to eradicate illegal items from the market, Wang said.

The international firms sued the market and five business stalls last November for allegedly selling pirated copies of their products. They demanded 2.5 million yuan (310,000 U.S. dollars) in compensation.

Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court ordered the market and the stall owners to pay each of the five international companies 20,000 yuan (2,500 U.S dollars) last December.

The market appealed to the Higher People's Court of Beijing.

Wang said the possibility of "entrapment" could not be ruled out if the brand-name firms had bought fake copies of their products after such goods had disappeared from the market.

During the first hearing, lawyers representing the companies submitted a notarized document as evidence that they had bought fake goods at the market.

"But the document cannot prove that fake goods are sold openly on the market," said Wang.

Lawyer Wang Yadong, who represents the five companies, dismissed the allegation of "entrapment" as impossible.

Source: Xinhua