‘Too many cooks spoil the broth’ is not to be applied to Chaudhry’s study of illicit trade

Abstract

Counterfeit and illicit trade is a booming business. Even at a time where law enforcement agencies are clamping down on illicit trade with increasingly sophisticated methods, and manufacturers, authorities, academics and other agencies are encouraging customers to abandon fakes, illicit trade keeps on growing. One way put forward to solve this problem is to adopt a multi-stakeholder perspective in analysing the problem of illicit trade. In the Handbook of Research on Counterfeiting and Illicit Trade, the editor Peggy E. Chaudhry does so by bringing together contributors from various countries and disciplines (academia, customs authorities, the private sector, legal experts …) to share their perspectives on the growth of illicit trade, including counterfeits and Internet piracy; the aim of the book being to provoke discussions and assist stakeholders to eradicate further growth in illicit trade. The book is divided into five parts, which comprise 18 chapters. Part I discusses the need to approach illicit trade in an innovative manner, highlighting key aspects for successful global enforcement such as understanding the criminal opportunity risk for product counterfeiting, and the alarming trend of using illicit trade as a front and a conduit for money laundering and terrorist financing. The first two chapters highlight the connection between organized crime, terrorism and illicit trade, making it clear that there is more to counterfeits than meets the eye. This sets the stage for the last chapter in Part I, which analyses the soft law applicable to trade-based money laundering. Part II provides an overview of governments’ initiatives to thwart illicit trade in the USA, Mexico and China’s e-commerce. Part III, written by industry experts, focuses on counterfeit goods in three high-profile sectors: pharmaceuticals, luxury goods and tobacco. Chapter 9 on luxury goods thus sets out what motivates the purchase of ‘loxury’ (‘low luxury’ as coined by Cesareo, Pastore & Williams) and the evolving responses by companies to counterfeiting over the years. Part IV tackles a dynamic that is fast becoming unavoidable to all in the field of intellectual property: illicit trade and the Internet. Starting off with a general overview of the magnitude of piracy on the Internet, Part IV then discusses the impact of social media on the infringement of intellectual property rights, in particular counterfeits; the shifts caused in the music industry by technological innovations; online branding and the presence of malwares such as ransomware and malvertising on websites offering illicit products and services. The final part, Part V, discusses anti-counterfeiting tactics and their effectiveness. Yang and Sonmez in Chapter 17 review various anti-counterfeiting strategies and assess their efficiency. Their results are summed up in a table, whose conciseness deserves to be highlighted. The other chapters in Part V discuss anti-counterfeiting tactics to diffuse consumer demands, the role of physical and online intermediaries used, knowingly and unknowingly, to produce, supply and distribute counterfeits, and the detection of counterfeits in the supply chain.