On 15 January 2025, the World Customs Organization (WCO) advised that it had held its 2nd Symposium on “Removing Counterfeits from E-Commerce”. This event aimed to discuss issues arising from substandard, counterfeit and falsified medicines and medical devices traded through e-commerce.
The Symposium, held in a hybrid mode, was organised thanks to the financial support of the Customs Cooperation Fund of Japan (CCF/Japan). Some 1 193 participants, representing the voices of diverse stakeholders, registered for the event. This confirms the importance of holding discussions on the issue of Intellectual Property Right (IPR) infringements involving goods traded via e-commerce.
In his opening remarks, the Representative of the WCO Secretariat highlighted the main objectives of the WCO IPR Strategy 2020. This Strategy emphasises the need to ensure engagement by all the relevant stakeholders when addressing the issue of counterfeit goods and, more specifically, stakeholders affected by the sale of medicines via e-commerce. Taking the floor next, the Representative of Japan Customs underlined the significance of the event and welcomed the WCO’s continued efforts to address IPR issues in e-commerce, as this was one of the significant emerging challenges facing Customs.
Professor Saifuddin Ahmed, Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, opened the first session with a keynote speech on the rise of substandard, counterfeit and falsified medicines sold through e-commerce and the challenges this poses. He went on to explain the growing global problem of counterfeit pharmaceuticals, underscoring the gravity of this challenge, which went far beyond the realms of healthcare, touching the lives of millions of people and threatening the very fabric of public trust in pharmaceuticals.
The ongoing threat to consumer safety posed by the consumption and use of substandard, counterfeit and falsified medicines and medical devices sold online was a key topic during the Symposium. The four speakers on the panel, from the Australian Border Force (ABF), the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), Amazon, and La Poste Group, shared well-informed views on the topic.
Discussions focused on the scale of the phenomenon, the need to protect consumers from criminal networks that exploit the proliferation of social media and the internet to sell substandard, counterfeit and falsified medicines and medical devices online with impunity, and the importance of Customs’ engagement to counter this threat successfully.
