MANILA - Consumers always come first.

This is the reason that pushed the Philippine distributor of Korean brand Etude House, Rosa Fioure House Corp., to sue online shopping site Lazada.

In an interview with ABS-CBNnews.com, Rosa Fioure House Corp. said the company conducted an investigation on one of the sellers of Etude House products after receiving complaints of counterfeit and fake products sold online.

"A lot of consumers have been coming in our stores and complaining about the said product, so we conducted an investigation," Rose Fioure, which also operates as Etude House Philippines, said.

The distributor said that once it verified the complaints, it immediately took action to protect its customers.

"We tried to be diplomatic about it but our consumers always come first," it said.

On Thursday, Lazada said it conducted its own investigation and already removed the merchant offering Etude House products on the site.

Lazada also assured its customers that feedback regarding products is taken seriously, saying it "has a zero tolerance policy towards non-compliant sellers."

"In the event of exceptional cases of suspicious products being sold on our platform, we take decisive action, including investigating the merchants and removing the products from our site," Lazada said.

There are currently no Etude House products being sold on Lazada.com.ph.

Etude House Philippines, however, said it will push through with the criminal case against Lazada for violations of Sections 155, 168 and 169 of the Intellectual Property Code due to the selling and/or facilitating the sale of fake and/or counterfeit Etude House of Korea products.

The case has been filed before the Office of the City Prosecutor of Makati.

"We are pushing through with the case, we owe it to our consumers," the Philippine distributor said.

Etude House is a Korean cosmetics brand launched in the Philippines in 2009. It now has more than 40 stores nationwide.

Lazada, meanwhile, is owned by Rocket Internet and is one of the top B2C eCommerce market places in Southeast Asia.

On its website, Lazada said it has over 8.7 million unique visitors every month. It also claims that its biggest sellers sell more than 1,000 items every day.