Swiss trademarks launch themselves to attack Chinese counterfeiting
Coarse counterfeits or copies at 3,000 francs are traded on Chinese markets. © Claro Cortes / Reuters 9 minutes of reading Clément Bürge, Canton and Hong Kong Published Sunday March 26, 2017 at 18:47, modified Monday March 27, 2017 at 08:24.
COUNTERFEITING
Swiss trademarks launch themselves to attack Chinese counterfeiting Watches, medicines, bags or electric switches, China has never so much copied Swiss products. Swiss companies employ hundreds of detectives and launched more than 7,000 raids last year to combat the phenomenon. Investigation
The watches market in Guangzhou looks like a small town. A series of long winding streets connect seven gigantic shopping malls, pink and blue. Hundreds of customers - mostly Indians, Russians, Africans and Middle Easterners - stroll around, watching the various timepieces exposed and negotiating prices down.
This is the biggest fake watch market in China - and therefore the world. More than 3,000 merchants sell Hublot, Rolex, IWC, Frank Muller, Vacheron Constantin and Piaget. Retailers are sitting behind small stands, exhibiting rows of watches well aligned. They hail the potential customers who venture a few steps from their installation, touting the precision of the movements and the sophistication of their timepieces. Not a single Swiss model is missing. China is the world capital of counterfeiting. More than 30 million Chinese copies of Swiss watches are sold every year in the world, according to the Federation Watchmaking, more than the actual Swiss watches - whose sales amount to 25 million units per year. But this copy is not limited to the watch industry alone. In Switzerland, 84% of all counterfeit goods imported into the country come from China and Hong Kong, according to the Federal Customs Administration. And the fake industry is growing: it was worth $ 461 billion in 2013, compared to $ 250 billion in 2007. "The history of counterfeiting in China goes hand in hand with the history of economic development in this country," explains Thierry Dubois, an expert on the issue at the FÊdÊration Horlogère. Western firms relocated their production to Asia, first to Hong Kong in the 1970s, then to Taiwan and Korea in the 1980s and finally to southern China in the 1990s. Local factories then learned To manufacture and thus to copy their products. "When a factory lost its contract with a Western firm, it continued to produce the same goods, but without authorization.
Sophisticated imitations At the Guangzhou market, most models of exposed watches are coarse imitations, which sell at a price ranging from 20 francs to 100 francs. But the merchants quickly snatch visitors who seem interested in their products. "You like the good stuff you do?" Sneaks Winnie, a little brunette wearing a candy-colored cap, smiling nervously. "Follow me," she says. She descends from her high stool and trots to an elevator looking behind her shoulder. On the 7th floor, she arrives in front of a large metal wall. Winnie taps a code on a keyboard and a hidden door opens overlooking an anonymous lounge. She enters a second code to open another door hidden in a wall. Open Sesame. Inside the small room, Winnie exhibits her most beautiful models. A Hublot Big Bang Ferrari, a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso or an Omega Seamaster. "All are automatic and I do not see the difference with the real ones," enthuses a fleshy Indian customer, who examines these watches with a magnifying glass screwed on the right eye. If the price of the original models varies between 4,000 francs and 250,000 francs, the Chinese producers offer replicas of high quality for a sum varying between 300 and 3,000 francs. "These copies sometimes amount to as much as 90% of the original product," says Douglas Clark, a Hong Kong-based anti-counterfeiting lawyer. The first products copied by the Chinese were simple to produce: plastic toys, cotton t-shirts or fake leather handbags. But counterfeits have changed over time. Nowadays, Chinese factories copy everything: watches, cosmetics, powdered milk, but also electrical converters, automotive components and even medicines. And the quality has also improved. Even counterfeit drugs are now close to original products. "Previously, we detected a fake drug just by looking at its box," explains Adrian Wong, in charge of anti-counterfeiting in Asia for Novartis. The pills were made only of sugar. Today, more and more fake medicines are being seized containing active ingredients. " Two phenomena are at the origin of this development. First, the Chinese economy is more sophisticated than before. Graduates of Chinese universities know how to produce complex medicines as well as the latest models of smartphones, and have the machines and raw materials necessary for their manufacture. Secondly, the Internet has allowed fraudsters to sell their counterfeit products more discreetly. "Before, you had to have a store to sell fake
drugs or replicas of watches," says William Tan, a lawyer specializing in anti-counterfeiting. It was a risky process, it was easy to get caught by the police. But the online sale made the distribution anonymous, and thus reduced the chances of getting pinched,
Switzerland at the heart of counterfeiting Swiss products are the most replicated of all. "The counterfeiting industry likes to copy brands with a strong identity and which are symbols of quality," explains Michel Arnoux, in charge of counterfeiting within the Swiss Watch Federation. "Rolex, Hublot, Roche, Novartis, ABB And Victorinox are in the line of sight. For Swiss companies, the damage is heavy. "Customers who buy counterfeits are not necessarily the ones who bought real products," says Arnoud. But when everyone wears a fake Rolex for example, it nevertheless damages its image. In the watch industry, everything is based on emotion. Counterfeiting breaks this relationship with the brand and can deter people from buying Swiss watches. "In some cases, it can even be dangerous for the consumer:" When copying drugs, it is the patients' lives "Says Adrian Wong of Novartis, whose cancer and malaria drugs have been copied several times by Chinese firms. In the watch market, the exhibitors suddenly stop talking. A heavy silence seizes thousands of vendors. Nervous, they grab a white sheet one after the other and cover their stalls full of watches, creating a strange domino effect. "A police car makes a round," murmurs one. If counterfeiting is in full swing in China, Swiss companies do not let themselves be. Thierry Dubois is the symbol of this fight. This Neuchâtel has a round face and warm, but behind this bonhomie lies the leader of the ambitious Selective Trademark Union (STU), a company mandated by the Swiss Watch Federation and other companies in the luxury sector to fight against counterfeiting in China. "We have a team of 120 people across the country who detect fake products," he explains in his office in Hong Kong. He discovers fake Omega, Patek Philippe and Breitling, but also Montblanc pens, Chanel bags and Christian Dior sunglasses. In 2016,
The Swiss Response The fight against counterfeiting involves three stages. First, the company needs to know if fake products are on the market. "Our teams therefore survey markets and stores and make inventories of fake products," explains Thierry Dubois. Other members of his team also monitor items sold online, where today 80% of counterfeits are found. Then, once the fraudulent goods are detected, it is a question of collecting information on the origin of these products and their manufacturer. "This is the most complicated step," says Alex Theil, another of the Shanghaibased investigators. The method most frequently used by this private investigator: "I buy a product on the website of a merchant and I then tell him that his product is defective, explains the German. He then gives me a mailing address where to return the product. "But these coordinates often lead to anonymous mailboxes. "I then slide a GPS tracker in the package to see where it actually ends," he said in an amused tone. Once the fraudster has been identified, it is a question of infiltrating the place of production of the counterfeit object to gather evidence. "These factories work like prisons," says Ted Kavowras, an American investigator. There is a wall around, guards watching, everybody is searched in and out. It's impossible to get in. "His solution? He pretends to be a buyer. "I go into the factory, claiming to want to buy thousands of watches, for example, in the company of two notaries observing everything," he said. Ted Kavowras disguises as a Mexican wholesaler or an oil magnate from Dubai and takes pictures using a micro-camera hidden in a fake bottle of CocaCola or in his shirt buttons. The accompanying notaries also write a report on what they saw. Alternatively, have one of its agents hired as an employee of the plant. The investigators then present the evidence gathered at the AIC
(Authority for Industry and Commerce), an agency of the Chinese government, which has the power to organize a raid and seize the products.
False Investigators But hunt down his impostors is a long-term job. "There are so many," said Thierry Dubois. As soon as you catch one, another appears. We have to constantly monitor the market. " And sometimes the company's investigators can turn against it. ABB experienced this trauma. The company it had contracted to counteract the counterfeiting of its electrical switches, the China United Intellectual Property Protection Center, closed all firms producing false ABB products. Then, China United started producing the counterfeits itself. "It was ingenious, because ABB provided plans for its original models to China United and did not suspect that their investigators were engaging in counterfeiting themselves," said investigator Alex Theil, who worked on this scandal . In 2015, ABB discovered the scam and attacked the firm in court, but failed to prove China United's guilt before the Chinese courts. Contacted by Le Temps, But what else can be done to combat these counterfeits? The struggle on the ground is vital, but the business budget is not unlimited. For many, the solution must be political. "The government needs to tackle the online distribution platforms used to sell these fake products, such as Alibaba and Taobao (two major e-commerce sites)," says William Law, a lawyer specializing in counterfeit-based In Hong Kong. In Switzerland, the recent hardening of "Swissness", the law protecting "Swiss made", gives some hope to the fight. "Any counterfeit product on which the Swiss term is registered can be seized," says Michel Arnoux.
The abuse of the Swiss Made label in China More and more Chinese companies are manufacturing products using the Swiss Made label, claiming wrongly the Swiss origin of their products. The cosmetics brands Ewe, Fracora and MaylandĂŠ sell creams and lotions based on sheep embryos or human placenta, claiming that they come from Switzerland, as well as the Swiss Technos and Swiss Geneva watches ". In November 2016, the Selective Trademark Union (STU) obtained a mandate from the Swiss government to seize the bags of a backpack brand named "Swisswin", a first. "In collaboration with the Chinese authorities, we seized 527 backpacks and suitcases that claimed to be Swiss," says Thierry Dubois, who is in charge of the Selective Trademark Union, A company mandated by the Swiss Watch Federation and other luxury companies to combat counterfeiting in China. This seizure opens a new era in the fight against false Swiss Made products produced in China. "(CB)
https://www.letemps.ch/economie/2017/03/26/marques-suisses-se-lancent-lassaut-contrefacon-chinoise