The White House and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have introduced and expanded measures to limit counterfeit goods trafficking on e-commerce platforms and protect intellectual property rights. CBP recently updated their priority trade issues and added Intellectual Property Rights. The White House also issued a presidential memoranda on October 13, 2020, urging more aggressive enforcement in stopping counterfeit goods on e-commerce platforms.

Trafficking in counterfeit goods infringes on the intellectual property rights of American companies and undermines their competitiveness. The Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT), administered through CBP, published an alert on October 20 indicating, “On average, [CBP] processes more than 420,000 parcels of mail and 180,000 express consignment shipments each day just from China. Through Operation Mega Flex, CBP determined that about 12.5% of targeted parcels contained counterfeit goods or contraband.”

C-TPAT goes on to explain that counterfeit sales do a lot more damage to the rightful brand owner beyond revenue and profits, including supporting terrorism, money laundering, and other threats to national security and human rights. Common tactics used by counterfeiters include mislabeling shipments and using false documentation to disguise their shipments.

Trans-Border has been a member of C-TPAT since 2006 and continues to work with CBP and our partners to protect the supply chain, identify and mitigate security gaps, and implement specific security measures and best practices. We encourage our clients to identify all of the players in their supply chain and identify risk.

If you have any questions, please reach out at info@tbgfs.com or (800) 493-9444.