Alibaba calls for tougher Chinese laws against counterfeiters
Under pressure from the U.S. government and vendors in various markets to crack down on counterfeiters, Alibaba has called on Chinese authorities for clearer laws and higher penalties.
“Law-enforcement agencies often found it difficult to classify and quantify incidences of counterfeiting and also had difficulties building legal cases due to ambiguous counterfeiting laws," the Chinese retail giant said in a statement, which claimed that the company's strenuous efforts to curb counterfeiting have been often stymied by an inadequate regulatory framework in the country.
As a result, the authorities investigated only 1,184 cases of 4,495 possible leads on counterfeiting submitted by Alibaba in 2016. Only 33 or 0.7 percent of the cases resulted in convictions. Law enforcement was able to build only 469 cases from the 1,184 leads. Each of the cases involved goods of a value exceeding the statutory minimum of 50,000 yuan ($7,274) for criminal investigation.
To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here