Columbia nails counterfeiters

South American activewear company Columbia Sportswear is winning its fight against counterfeit clothing flooding the international market, after it seized millions of dollars worth of unlicensed apparel in a number of raids across China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Australia and the US.
The company's Australian distributor Outdoor Performance told Ragtrader it first discovered unlicensed clothing bearing the Columbia Sportswear logo on sale to the public through two "well-known" fashion retail chains in New South Wales and Adelaide earlier this year.
Both companies, which were reportedly slapped with Federal Court proceedings, were ordered to surrender all unclicensed garments, including pants, jackets and shirts.
Counterfeit clothing has also been seized at two mass warehouse clearance sales at Homebush Bay and Fox Studio's in Sydney, both of which were brought to the distributor's attention following a recent spate of television advertisments on several commercial networks.
Outdoor Performance CEO Craig Ryan said the four raids carried out in Australia resulted in the seizure of counterfeit apparel valued at $1 million.
"It is a huge job trying to stop counterfeit merchandise from hitting the market," said Ryan.
"Whilst it has come at a big cost to the company, Columbia has successfully been able to trace all the goods seized in Australia back to factories operating in America, China, Cambodia and Vietnam, many of which have now been shut down. This should serve as a warning to all apparel companies that if they sell or manufacturer counterfeit clothing, they will be liable for prosecution."
Looking further abroad, Columbia has also seized approximately 80,000 counterfeit products in a series of raids in China.
Acting on a request by Chinese officials in Yiwu City, Zhejiang Province staged a raid that yielded nearly 45,000 pairs of counterfeit pants. Further raids uncovered an additional 34,000 unlicensed garments, including parkas, ball caps and fishing vests.
Efforts to expand Columbia's anti-counterfeiting program in Vietnam also led to the closure of three workshops caught manufacturing unlicensed backpacks.
"The increasing global recognition of our brand has made it a valuable target for these counterfeiting operations, said Columbia Sportswear president and CEO Tim Boyle.
"We will not sit back while others profit with the sale of low quality products masquerading as authentic Columbia merchandise."
This case comes just three months after the Australian distributor of Von Dutch dumped the popular US fashion label in reponse to the profileration of counterfeit goods bearing the Von Dutch logo flooding the local market.
Faced with market stalls across the country selling unlicensed clothing and accessories from as low as $8, the decision to pull the label off the market came just 12 months after the label was officially launched in Australia.