e Guillou, a senior associate with intellectual property law firm Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick, which represents Louis Vuitton’s border force interests in Australia. Speaking to Inside Retail Weekly, she said e-commerce was behind this change and the results were much harder to combat. “Its getting more difficult for our clients to deal with [counterfeiting] because we were once talking about importers bringing in a container full of products, but now if you look at the results from customs offices around the world, it’s more postal traffic,” she said. “More people are doing drop shipping or just shipping smaller quantities. Sometimes [counterfeiters] get goods delivered straight to their clients. “It makes it a lot harder because we’re dealing with a lot of seizures with Australian Border Force, but for very small quantities of items.” Even Amazon has come under fire for failing to prevent counterfeiting on its global platform, with Apple last week filing a lawsuit against New Jersey company, Mobile Star, after supposedly finding that 90 per cent of the “Apple” cables and chargers it ordered from Amazon.com were counterfeit. Apple claims that Mobile Star has imprinted Apple logos on its own chargers and cables, which, it says, “pose a significant risk of overheating, fire, and electrical shock”. Retail grouping to lobby Canberra Domestically, a European Chamber of Commerce index released last week warned that illicit trade in the Asia pacific region is on the uptick and while Australia was ranked first in the region at dealing with the problem, Australian retailers believe more should be done. The Australian Retail Association (ARA), with support from both the Australian Sporting Goods Association (ASGA) and the Australian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS), last week formed ‘Australians to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy’ (AUSCAP) to lobby government for legislative change to tackle the problem. According to ARA executive director Russell Zimmerman, counterfeiting is a “huge problem” plaguing the retail sector in Australia and affects a wide range of categories – from luxury goods to toothpaste. “A lot of [counterfeit] luxury brands weren’t there 10 years ago,” Zimmerman told Inside Retail Weekly. “They are there now and as people increasingly demand these products, we’re seeing more and more of them being counterfeited and brought in.” Zimmerman wouldn’t comment on which retailers and brands are backing AUSCAP, but said the coalition would be heading to Canberra in the final sitting week of parliament in November to lobby government. “We want to ensure that illicit products aren’t allowed to come into the country and when found, they are removed,” he said. “We want to increase fines for anybody who’s bringing [illicit] product in … and maybe have their license taken away from them.” Zimmerman said trade in counterfeit goods sucks value from the retail sector by creating illegal competition that undercuts retail prices and destroys consumer confidence in consumer goods. “When you get a like-minded group of people together, you have the opportunity to talk to government and get changes made that will assist retailers in ensuring that illicit products are stamped out, whatever they may be,” he said. Australia behind the eight ball Guillou revealed that Australia’s regulatory environment for combating trade in counterfeit goods lags behind other nations, especially European countries like Italy and France. Because counterfeit goods are coming in increasingly small quantities, she said authorities need to begin cracking down on “personal use” importing. “Border Force can only seize a certain quantity of items that are being imported by an importer; it has to be for the commercial sale,” she explained. “That’s one of the issues in Australia. People think that it’s okay because they know that they aren’t going to run into any issues if they only import for themselves. “Imagine if we had the same situation with drugs: ‘Oh, I was just importing enough just for me’. Well no, it’s not good enough of an excuse. “In France, there’s no such exception. If you go through the border with one counterfeit handbag it can be seized by customs … that’s certainly a loophole in Australia.” Guillou also claimed that police cooperation is insufficient in Australia, noting that cracking down on counterfeit goods would involve changing the attitudes of both consumers and the authorities. “It’s next to impossible to get cooperation from the police,” she said, noting that when she talks to international brands which have brand protection teams all over the world, they are surprised that Australia’s police force isn’t involved. Government policy drives illicit tobacco trade Border Protection Force figures reveal that more than 14,000 kilograms of illicit chop-chop tobacco and cigarettes have been seized in 2016 alone, outstripping seizures of other banned drugs in the first half of the year. The flourishing of the illicit tobacco market has underpinned AACS’s support for AUSCAP, with convenience stores like 7-Eleven concerned that recent government policies have driven illegal trade at the expense of retail sales. “Illicit tobacco, fuelled by ongoing excessive excise hikes, hurts the thousands of small businesses selling legitimate tobacco products, including our franchisees,” a 7-Eleven spokesperson told Inside Retail Weekly in a statement. “We welcome increased government enforcement measures and the new industry coalition’s efforts to highlight and tackle this insidious trade.” Zimmerman viewed illicit tobacco is the ‘old kid on the block’ when it came to counterfeiting in Australia. However, despite acknowledging that tobacco excise policies have contributed to the black market trade, he said AUSCAP would focus on lobbying to stamp out counterfeiting rather than combatting excise policies. “As an association we believe in healthy lifestyles. However, currently [tobacco] is a legal product,” he said. “While it is a legal product you need to protect that industry.” Inside Retail Weekly approached several retailers and brands understood to be subject to counterfeiting in Australia. Nike, Chanel and Louis Vuitton declined to comment.