Alibaba Group Holding Ltd Sued By Luxury Brands Over Counterfeit Goods In US
Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE:BABA) was sued by Kering, a luxury goods company, on Friday; the group claimed that the Chinese e-commerce giant intentionally allowed sellers to sell their counterfeit goods around the globe.
Kering has sued the online-shopping giant in Manhattan Federal Court. The lawsuit includes subsidiaries of Paris-based KERING UNSP ADR (OTCMKTS:PPRUY), Yves Saint Laurent (YSL), and GUCCI GROUP NV (OTCMKTS:GUCG). The brands are seeking damages, and a sanction for alleged racketing and trademark violations.
Beware! The medicines you are buying may be fake
As India witnesses an increased incidence of communicable and non-communicable diseases every year, the drug industry is also pooling in drugs but without getting necessary approval from the government.
A recent research survey carried out by William Harvey Research Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Global Health, Policy and Innovation Unit, Queen Mary University of London along with Foundation for Research in Community Health, India published in PLOS ONE journal on Tuesday has revealed that many common drugs flood the Indian market without approval of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).
https://in.news.yahoo.com/beware–the-medicines-you-are-buying-may-be-fake-071050751.html
Lear MoreSyrian smugglers shun weapons and turn to cigarettes for profits
They used to sneak in weapons and blackmarket oil. But now eastern Syria’s smugglers are seeking profit from a new illicit product: cigarettes.
It is forbidden under the austere religious law imposed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as Isis, but smoking is a habit many Syrians find hard to break. Despite its military might and its control of nearly a third of Syria and neighbouring Iraq, Isis faces an uphill battle tackling smoking in a region where roughly 40 per cent of the population is addicted.
ABC News Investigation Into Counterfeit Prescription Drug Operations in the US
A year-long ABC News “20/20” investigation uncovered numerous operations involving the sale of dangerous counterfeit prescription drugs, many of which were sold under the guise of being authentic medication shipped in from Canada, or sold openly on the streets, Flea Markets, or retail stores in Los Angeles.
For the past year, an ABC News’ “20/20” investigation team has been working behind the scenes with U.S. Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, FBI, Los Angeles Police Department, the L.A. Sheriff’s department, among other law enforcement agents to investigate the prevalence of counterfeit goods being sold across the United States. These items range from everyday home goods such as bicycle helmets and perfumes, to more dangerous fakes, such as airbags and prescription drugs.
Anti-counterfeit technology news in brief
Norway’s Thinfilm Electronics’ near-field communications (NFC) tags have joined the security features interfaced with the World Customs Organisation’s IPM online anti-counterfeiting tool, which is used by customs officers to help distinguish between authentic and counterfeit shipments in the field. The NFC labels – which have just been deployed by drinks manufacturer Diageo to protect Johnnie Walker Blue Label bottles – were first introduced in March. The NFC OpenSense and NFC Barcode products are the first technologies based on NFC to be included in the IPM Connected system, which links vendor technologies to the IPM database, according to TFE.
Lear MoreSmoking taxes make cigarette smuggling an increasingly attractive option
When a government treats citizens like criminals they tend to respond like criminals. The federal government, as large and intrusive as it has ever been, has helped create an underworld trade that is costing multi-billions of dollars.Every week, the equivalent of one full container of illicit cigarettes is smuggled into Australia. There are only guesstimates about the size of the trade because smugglers don’t do bureaucracy.
The retail value of that standard container load of cigarettes, if sold legally, would be about $10 million dollars, such is the cost of a pack of cigarettes these days. On the black market, that container load would be worth about $4.5 million.
In land of fakes, Chinese e-commerce giant sells trust
Before he became a billionaire in e-commerce, Richard Liu was a failure. As a student, Liu started a restaurant in Beijing but went bankrupt. He blames employees who he said stole from him, and when he took a second stab at business by opening an electronics store in 1998, Liu insisted on honesty. After seeing other shops overcharge customers and pass off counterfeit goods, he says he sold only genuine merchandise.
Lear More
Bill Gates bets on growing demand for sustainable foods
“This is not a product for vegetarians,” claimed Patrick Brown, a Stanford biologist and physician turned food-tech entrepreneur about the meatless yet purposely meatlike hamburger his Redwood City, California-based start-up, Impossible Foods, is developing. “Our whole reason for doing this is to provide choices for people who are uncompromising meat lovers.”
Up the road in San Francisco, Josh Tetrick, a former college linebacker and Fulbright scholar, insisted that his three-year-old food company, Hampton Creek, which uses a laboratory-born egg substitute to make mayonnaise and cookies, “is not about reaching out to health-conscious consumers.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102659606
Lear More3,000 smuggling bids foiled in Abu Dhabi
The customs centres in Abu Dhabi recorded 75 smuggling attempts of illegal drugs, which amounted to 3,444 narcotic pills and 42.35kg of drugs including cocaine, opium, marijuana.
The Abu Dhabi Customs foiled nearly 3,000 smuggling attempts in the first quarter of the current year. These included smuggling bids of 3,013 illegal immigrants.
According to a report released by Abu Dhabi’s Department of Finance (DoF), the General Administration of Customs foiled 2,940 smuggling attempts.
Lear More
Tunisia: Nearly 100 Thousand Counterfeit Products Destroyed
Nearly 100 thousand counterfeit cosmetic, electronic and stationery products were destroyed, Wednesday, at the Convention Centre in Tunis, a TAP journalist reported. These products were seized by the municipal police and economic control services in the first quarter of 2015.
The destruction took place for the first time before representatives of the national media, on the occasion of the first international conference on anti-counterfeiting held from May 13 to 14 in Tunis, 2014.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201505140474.html
Lear More