European Brands Association welcomes European Commission plan to combat counterfeit goods in e-commerce trade; imports of counterfeits account for 6% of European Union imports

Brussels, 06 February 2024. European businesses and consumers have all benefitted from the e-commerce revolution, but the surge in low cost, often poor quality packages flooding into the EU is posing multiple challenges. AIM, the European Brands Association, welcomes the European Commission’s  thoughtful and practical Communication  issued yesterday, setting out a much-needed comprehensive EU toolbox for ensuring safe and sustainable e-commerce.

The global trade in counterfeit goods already accounts for almost 6% of all imports into the EU. Added to the growth of other non-compliant, and often unsafe, goods sold online, our Customs Authorities and brand holders are stretched to their limits as they battle to protect our consumers, environment and markets. The Commission’s proposals to accelerate Customs Reform—and require e-commerce platforms to contribute financially and practically to addressing the issues they have created—are both timely and essential.

AIM joins with the Commission in calling on the co-legislators and Member State authorities to fully support coordinated enforcement of the EU’s product safety, consumer, environmental and IP laws. Anyone selling goods within the Single Market must comply with our laws and standards: this is non-negotiable.

Brand holders rely on customs as the first line of defence to protect the Single Market. We fully support any effort to expand law enforcement resources and expertise in identifying and targeting illicit goods and the retention of IP crime as a priority in the EU’s fight against organised crime. Just as the Customs Reform should, rightly, remove the value threshold under which small parcels are deemed permissible – a little bit of crime is still a crime – it must also correct the untenable situation where victim brand holders shoulder the costs of storage, destruction and recycling of goods they did not make, transport or sell. It is only fair that the e-commerce operators who have heaped such costs on customs should help to offset those same costs; by the same token, it is only fair that the many legitimate businesses involved in the import of illicit goods into the EU assume the costs directly incurred with their treatment.

We particularly thank the Commission for recognising the pressing need for e-commerce operators to share relevant data with our law enforcement authorities before their shipments arrive at our borders: this is key for customs’ risk assessment and targeting of infringing consignments. However, we sound a note of caution: while there is no doubt that the flood of small parcels presents complex challenges, we cannot forget that the vast majority of goods – including those destined for the platforms’ fulfilment centres – arrive in the EU in large consignments, such as maritime and air freight containers. The Commission’s own statistics for 2023 show that while 86% of customs’ efforts were in the post and courier channels, this translated to only 11% of the IPR-infringing goods found at our borders. Only 14% of their work concentrated on volume consignments, yet this yielded 89% of the goods detained. Controls and procedures must be rebalanced between small and volume consignments if we are truly to win the illicit trade battle.

Legitimate businesses comply with the EU’s rulebooks; the unfair competition we are facing from those manufacturers and traders who do not greatly adds to our costs and seriously impacts our ability to protect our consumers and bolster the EU’s competitiveness on the world stage. We will continue to work in good faith with all legitimate businesses in the e-commerce value chain, and call upon the Member States to facilitate our practical enforcement efforts by respecting the DSA’s provisions permitting individual brand holders to be granted trusted flagger status. Enforcement of IP rights is at its core consumer protection: we respectfully call on all authorities to recognise the expertise that we, and all legitimate businesses, bring to the EU’s table in the struggle to ensure that only compliant, safe and quality goods are allowed in the Single Market.