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Update: Saturday, 15 May 2010    

Customs law to be reviewed to counter copycat

Protocol agreement with Unilever
Monday Jul 02 2007.

Copycat countering general manager in Customs Services told El Khabar that his services are to amend article 22 of the Customs Act related to forbidding counterfeiting and fraudulent good imports.

The new texts would toughen sanctions on both counterfeiters and importers of those counterfeiting goods.

Mr Bouanem made clear that double sanctions are to be implemented, the first one would be a court decision, whereas the second one would be customs act decision, this latter would force counterfeiting merchandize importers to pay a fine twice to the merchandize cost, as well as to other penalties reaching 6 month sentence.

On another side, the same speaker said that that Customs services would not be able to fight the worldwide phenomenon of counterfeiting alone, it needs however the involvement of trade marks companies.

In this context, Branch director for anti Fraud, Mrs. Ghedbane revealed that Customs have recently signed a protocol agreement with a branch of Unilever Company, (a European representative company to some brands), in order to cooperate in terms of counterfeiting fight.

Mrs Ghedbane added that Customs are studying similar requests from several brands representative companies, in the frame of which customs agents would benefit from a special training to be able to distinguish between original and counterfeited goods.

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