EU Watch List flags Shopee, Divisoria, Greenhills for selling fake goods

The European Commission has added four markets from Metro Manila, and the e-commerce platform Shopee to its Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List.

In its latest biennial report in December 2022, the European Commission identified the four markets ‘offering a wide range of counterfeit goods on retail and wholesale basis’. Namely Baclaran and Divisoria markets, Greenhills and Cartimar shopping malls located in Metro Manila.

The report mentioned that the commonly counterfeited product are shoes, with some stalls allegedly operate online shops selling other counterfeit goods. “No police actions are taken,” the report said referring to the Baclaran and Divisoria marketplaces in Parañaque City and Manila City, respectively.

While the stalls located inside the vicinity of Greenhills and Cartimar shopping malls are reported to sell higher quality of counterfeit goods. It cited the National Bureau of Investigation referred in April 2022 when the bureau seized EUR 1 million worth of possible counterfeit goods in Greenhills shopping center, coupled with its public pledge to curb down the sale of counterfeits.

Established in 2018, this is the first time the EU Watch List flags Philippine markets.

Furthermore, the Watch List flags one of the biggest online shopping platforms in Southeast Asia, Shopee, for the second time. It allegedly sells ‘a high volume of counterfeit goods’. It was reported due to lack of proactive measures, burdensome notices system, slow removals of infringing listings, and lack of common policies enforcement across Shopee’s channels, as well as limited cooperation with righholders.

In defense of Shopee, the report said that the e-commerce platform has been taking actions since 2021 to enhance their measures. Notably, the Shopee Intellectual Property (IP) Brand Portal that recently rolled out in July 2022 which aims to safeguard the interests of ‘select’ sellers/IP owners.

“They have also indicated plans to provide for a clearer user policy, strengthening the sellers vetting and education activities and developing new tools for proactive monitoring based on new technologies,” the report stated.

Aside from the subjects mentioned above, the EU Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List also includes other service provides whose offerings allegedly lean into piracy and counterfeiting. It includes P2P and BitTorrent indexing websites like The Pirate Bay and Rarbg, as well as download sites like Sci-hub and Library Genesis.

The European Commission noted that it does not take any stance on the content of such allegations nor their responses. The Watch List is a selection of marketplaces and service providers reported by stakeholders, along with a summary of the allegations and, where available, the response of the mentioned marketplace or service provider to those allegations.

The Watch List aims to provide examples of online service providers and physical markets that directly or indirectly facilitate counterfeiting or piracy of EU IPR protected goods and content outside the EU. The selection of these marketplaces and service providers was made between April and September 2022, and the information in the report reflects this period.

Ultimately, the EU Watch List also covers the positive developments relative to its previous reports. Since the 2020 Watch List, authorities, rightholders, and owners, operators, and landlords of marketplaces and online service providers have taken several enforcement actions and measures. Thus, some of the marketplaces or service providers mentioned in the 2020 Watch List are no longer mentioned in 2022 report.