Counterfeit goods trade restricted

Press, 12 January 1987, Page 30

Counterfeit goods trade restricted

NZPA-Reuter Brussels European Community economy Ministers today agreed on ways to combat a flourishing world trade in counterfeit goods, estimated to be worth billions of dollars a year, diplomats said. The Ministers decided on a regulation to allow customs authorities in the Community’s 12 member States to impound goods coming from third countries and carrying trade marks illegally, the diplomats said.

They said the move aimed to stem the flow of trade in goods such as sports shirts illegally

bearing the familiar green Lacoste alligator and fake Rolex watches. The European Parliament last year estimated world trade in counterfeit goods was worth more than £4O billion ($ll2 billion) and cost 100,000 jobs in the European Community alone. Under the regulation, which will come into force in 1988, trademark owners will be able to ask national customs officials to check consignments of goods suspected of being forgeries if their trade mark was registered in that country, the diplomats said.