Malaysia's Petaling Street listed as most notorious for counterfeit goods

Malaysia’s Petaling Street has been voted as one of the most notorious streets for fake branded goods as stated in the 2022 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy report by the United States Trade Representative. The bazaar along the street has been reported to have all the counterfeit luxury goods one could covet. Items include watches, shoes, handbags, sunglasses, wallets from brands ranging from Chanel to Burberry.

In the report, seen by A+M, it is stated that even though market activity has not returned to pre-pandemic levels because foreign tourism has yet to spring back, majority of goods that are currently available appear to be counterfeit. Moreover, “local authorities are not proactive in conducting enforcement activity without rightsholders’ initiative. Even when right holders try to initiate enforcement activities, they report difficulties due to local favouritism and the involvement of organised crime at this market,” the report also stated.

The Malaysian hotspot was the only one in the country that was identified in the report.

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The notorious markets list, includes 33 physical markets and 39 online markets that it says “reportedly engage in or facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy”.

The report also singles out online piracy markets on platforms such as Shopee and Taobao. Shopee is an online and mobile eCommerce market based in Singapore with individual country-focused platforms primarily serving Southeast Asia, Europe, and Brazil. Rightsholders report overall high volumes of counterfeits across some of Shopee’s platforms. The report also cites complaints about "duplicative processes", "differing requirements for takedown requests" as well as "slow response times".

In 2022, Shopee launched a pilot program for its new brand protection portal and increased its engagement with right holders. According to the report, rightsholders are urging Shopee to push enforcements against counterfeit goods through increased penalties.

Taobao is an Alibaba owned platform. The report states that Taobao has proactive screening tools that use keywords to remove counterfeit listings, but these tools fall short in analysing prices to reduce the volume of counterfeits being. The report also states the holders’ complaints about the lack of compliance with its “evidence-required notice-and-takedown mechanism”, which causes doubts about whether there is consistency and transparency of policies when it comes to seller removals. 

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