Financial Times - Sri Lankan counterfeit buster acts against fakes

With anti-counterfeit cases filed against the country’s top fashion stores and raids or criminal action against many others trading in fake labels especially clothes, in the bag that should make Sudath Perera easily qualify as Sri Lanka’s counterfeit buster.

However the lawyer says there is a long way to go. “Going after counterfeiters is one thing. But the most important element in intellectual property rights is creating sufficient awareness for people to understand and accept that copying another person’s product is not good for any industry or the country,” Perera, who founded Sudath Perera Associates which has swiftly gained a reputation for its aggressive anti-counterfeiting work, told The Sunday Times FT in an interview.

“We have to take this issue seriously and show the international community that Sri Lanka is taking steps to protect the IP rights of brand owners.”

As the Sri Lanka legal representative for several reputed US brands which he declined to disclose at this point of time as his work for them is not completed, Perera knows what he’s talking about.

He and his Brand Protection Team, acting on behalf of their mostly US and French designer clients, have along with the authorities conducted 30 to 40 raids on local establishments selling bogus or copied brands.

Cases have also been filed against super stores Odel, Arena and House of Fashion (two cases against the last named) for selling certain fake garments falsely bearing a well known brand name. Another case has been filed against Maxmara at Kohuwela by the law firm specializing in anti-counterfeiting work. Perera further stated, “with the exception of a few, the garments we see in most clothing shops in Sri Lanka are not the genuine articles but counterfeits, the garments manufactured here are meant solely for export purposes and not for sale in the local market.”

But things are getting even hotter for garment dealers involved in selling copycat brands. “There are a couple of raids planned in the near future,” he said, declining to give details of coming events or the kind of strategy that he adopts in a new area of busting corporate crime.

“In this kind of work, we cannot disclose the strategy or methods use to nab offenders,” he said, adding that his legal team works closely with the police, Customs and other government agencies involved in anti-counterfeit work.

He commended the efforts taken by the Criminal Investigations Department and the Customs officials so far in dealing with the counterfeiters, saying “without their assistance and co-operation we cannot successfully counter this issue.”

Perera, who practiced law for more than 14 years and has specialized in IP and brand protection, says insufficient safeguards for the protection of intellectual property rights can deter foreign investors.

“We don’t have garment quotas any more and thus need to attract the best companies to invest here and make every effort to keep those who are already here. But if we are not able to protect their brands or properly enforce our IP legislation, they’ll go elsewhere,” he said adding that two years ago a certain US clothing brand wanted to quit Sri Lanka, disgusted with that fakes of their garments were being manufactured and imported from Sri Lanka.

“When they retained our services, they wanted to quit. But I came up with a proposal and convinced them that in three months we could put things right.” It worked and the law firm’s reputation grew with more US brands hiring the organization as their legal representative here. A little known fact is that Sri Lankan garment factories are amongst the largest producers of well known clothing brands in the US and EU.

He said anti-counterfeiting legislation is available through the amended 2003 IP Act but enforcement is difficult due to infrastructure and other problems faced by the authorities.

“I think that as in other countries we need to have brand registration system at the Customs as well in addition to our IP office. This would help Customs to detect counterfeits efficiently when it gets in or gets out of the country,” he said.

The law firm’s reputation has grown so steadily that other brand owners are also retaining his services. “Word gets around about our work,” Perera, who began this work after representing global companies in respect of Intellectual Property rights, said.

The anti-counterfeiting lawyer says Sri Lanka has many big time counterfeit manufacturers and importers. Occasionally confronted by small-time manufacturers, hauled for selling copycat products, he is asked why he goes after the ‘small guys.’ “This is not the issue. In the long run if we allow this to happen, it will have an adverse effect on the country’s image, economy and jobs.”

He said the law firm takes whatever steps the brands owners want to protect their IP rights, whether its against a big store or a small shop owner and noted that the US embassy has also expressed a lot of concern about dud American brands being sold or manufactured here.
Almost 75 percent of his IP work is done through the brand protection unit which deals with the protection of apparel brands but the firm also handles brand protection for brands in other industries and has been retained by top corporations as their watchdog against fake software or computers being sold or made here.