NEW YORK — Mayor Michael Bloomberg is stepping up the city’s fight on counterfeiting.
In a speech here Wednesday, Bloomberg proclaimed February 2006 as Anticounterfeiting Month and revealed an initiative, Madison Avenue Blue, involving major luxury goods and fashion retailers to help boost the financing of the city’s anticounterfeiting efforts. The aim is to help stem the tide of counterfeit goods, which the International Chamber of Commerce estimates costs businesses $600 billion a year in sales worldwide.
Participating boutiques in Madison Avenue Blue to date include Arche, Barneys New York, BCBG Max Azria, Cartier, Celine, Chopard, David Yurman, DKNY, Dolce & Gabbana, Donna Karan International, Gucci, Jimmy Choo, Judith Ripka, La Perla, Marina Rinaldi, Max Mara, Missoni, Ralph Lauren, Stuart Weitzman, Via Spiga and Yves Saint Laurent. Sixty retailers in all are currently signed on for the program.
The initiative partners the retailers and the New York City Police Foundation with the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District and Harper’s Bazaar. The program was unveiled at the second annual Harper’s Bazaar Anticounterfeiting Summit 2006, held here on Wednesday at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, sponsored by Harper’s Bazaar in partnership with the Kirkland Ellis law firm.
March 14-28, the shops along Madison Avenue between 57th and 86th Streets will feature items with a blue theme, the color of the NYPD. From the sales of the blue-themed merchandise, 10 percent of revenues will be donated to the NYC Police Foundation to support a variety of programs, which includes anticounterfeiting efforts in the city. One effort of the NYC Police Foundation is undercover operations that assist in the arrest of counterfeiters.
“If we permit large-scale criminal enterprise to keep operating in the middle of Manhattan, what kind of message does that send?” Bloomberg said. “Trademark counterfeiting robs legitimate businesses of their customers.”
Bloomberg’s administration has brought attention to bear on the issue of counterfeit goods in New York. The Mayor’s Office of Midtown Enforcement has focused on vendors in the Garment District, an area that earned the nickname Counterfeit Alley, by targeting landlords as well as peddlers of counterfeit goods.
“We take their merchandise, we take their buildings and we take them to court,” Bloomberg said.
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To date, the Mayor’s Office of Midtown Enforcement has seized $48 million in counterfeit goods since December 2003, and $800,000 in damages have been collected from landlords whose buildings have housed counterfeit operations. Approximately 14 buildings in Counterfeit Alley were shut down, and some have been rehabilitated. One was turned into a hotel, the other into a flower market, the mayor said.
The city is also currently in the process of working with apparel manufacturers to donate goods seized in counterfeit raids to Gulf Coast residents, Bloomberg said.
“Mayor Bloomberg, the New York Police Department and [police] Commissioner [Raymond] Kelly have really gone beyond the call of duty [in the fight against counterfeits],” said Frederick Mostert, past president of International Trademark Association.
Counterfeits have become a problem of staggering proportions, and some estimates put the market close to $500 billion globally, said Valerie Salembier, senior vice president and publisher of Harper’s Bazaar, and the chair of the board of trustees of the NYC Police Foundation.
The problem has become pervasive, and counterfeit goods can be found in every category, the panelists stressed.
“The counterfeit problem is not only luxury goods. They are the visible part of the iceberg,” said Bertrand Stalla-Bourdillon, general manager of Louis Vuitton and president of its Berluti subsidiary.
LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton has placed a focus on landlord initiatives, similar to those undertaken by the Mayor’s Office of Midtown Enforcement, through its recently publicized Landlord Program. Under the program, LVMH has shifted its legal tactics in order to go after the landlords of the buildings that house counterfeiting activities, rather than simply individual street vendors. Stalla-Bourdillon said the program has been important for the luxury company in its worldwide efforts.
Under the program, LVMH two weeks ago won a permanent injunction against a group of Canal Street landlords it alleged owned properties where counterfeiting activities were said to be taking place.
“Prioritization of this issue is a key part of the answer,” said Chris Israel, international intellectual property enforcement coordinator at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Israel is the first person to hold this title. He was appointed in 2005 by President Bush to coordinate and leverage resources in the federal government to protect U.S. intellectual property.
Counterfeiting is an increasing problem for every industry — from fashion to pharmaceuticals — and government officials admit it’s difficult to pinpoint the true scale of the problem. The chief of Interpol, Ronald K. Noble, said at a counterfeiting conference in Geneva last November that transnational criminal gangs “not only manipulate counterfeit and pirated goods to maximize illicit profits, but also trade in many other dangerous illicit commodities.”
Noble said the protection of intellectual property rights “must be given a higher priority by policy makers in government, international organizations and law enforcement agencies.”
Rita Hayes, deputy director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization, said, “While we are still far away from a major breakthrough in the fight against the global problem…there are already important signs for a change in perception and political determination, and readiness for action.”