E-commerce marketplace Temu, hailed as the newest direct competitor to Shein, has said that it has filed a series of lawsuits against website domains that are “unlawfully doing business on its behalf”.

The company made the complaint against 20 website domains with the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, in which it claimed that those accused are “using its protected trademarks to create domain names, counterfeit apps, look-a-like online marketplaces, fake coupon codes and other false promotions” in a bid to “mislead customers”.

The lawsuit comes in regards to sites such as temuapp.biz, temucouponcodes.com and temudeals.store, each one Temu said have infringed on its trademark and are using its name without a licence to “create a false association” and “deceive customers”.

It further stated that the websites are creating unfair competition, while adding that it has allegedly been the subject of “defamatory sponsored ads”.

Temu said that when customers purchase from counterfeit Temu sites and end up not receiving their orders or experiencing inadequate customer service, it has a negative impact on the company, which further noted that it was already the recipient of comments and complaints regarding such instances.

Temu was established in September 2022 as the “sister company” of Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo, launching as a multi-segment marketplace that could attribute its success to low prices, discounts and free shipping.

The company currently resides in Dublin, Ireland, where it moved its headquarters to in May 2023, alongside other tech giants such as Apple, Meta and Google.