Lecture: The EU's fight against the illicit trade in counterfeit products

The EU has made several attempts to adopt a criminal law approach against organised illicit trade in counterfeit products, protecting trademarks infringements as essential tools for commercial enterprises operating in the EU internal market. Legislative proposals by the Commission failed in 2005 amidst discussions on EU competence in the criminal law area.

Currently, criminal law enforcement depends on international treaties and patchwork domestic legislation. This uncoordinated approach hampers investigations, prosecutions and international cooperation. Offence definitions and sentencing levels vary enormously. In the absence of clear policy coordination, other actors have stepped in such as Eurojust, the IPO and the EU Court of Justice, which issued a judgment on the proportionality of sentences. The question is whether it will be possible to move towards a common European criminal law trademark protection. Elements of that approach could include offence definition harmonisation, setting minimum-maximum penalties and improving opportunities for international cooperation.

This presentation aims to propose such a new approach and to explore the various elements it should include.

This event is organised by the Illict Trade research group within the Development, Security & Justice theme.