CAIT asks Indian Government to follow US policy against counterfeit goods online

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Jan 27, 2020

The Confederation of All India Traders has praised the U.S. government for taking measures against selling counterfeit goods online and has requested that the Indian government follows suit. 

 
On January 26, CAIT commended the U.S. government’s Department of Homeland Security for placing the responsibility on multi-brand e-commerce platforms for ensuring that goods sold are original and not counterfeit, the Press Trust of India reported. This policy will put the onus on large online businesses such as Amazon to check that the goods they sell are genuine, CAIT said, and added that the fact that the U.S. government has found counterfeit goods on businesses such as Amazon’s U.S. stores further proves that the businesses engage in the same practices in India.
 
Counterfeit goods are one of the main barriers to consumer trust in the Indian online market, especially in product categories such as beauty. In a number of counterfeit cases, e-commerce platforms have argued that they are not responsible for what independent sellers list on their site but CAIT believes that they should be. With the vast resources e-commerce giants in India such as Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart wield, CAIT has asked the government to officially shift the responsibility onto them in the fight against fake goods. 

"Taking this issue, a delegation of the CAIT will soon meet Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal," CAIT’s secretary general said in a statement reported by the Press Trust of India.

CAIT has previously asked the government to investigate Flipkart and Amazon for alleged deep discounting and goods and services tax violations and has held nationwide protests against the two entities for several months.