France : return to free customs interventions in the fight against counterfeit

Upon an administrative order dated December 11, 2018, the French customs introduced new rules enabling them to charge rights holders for processing files where goods have been detained or destroyed. However, to date, such charges have never been really applied.

At that time, we had shared our comments on the rather high amount of these fees, compared to those charged by customs in neighboring countries and the impact that these charges could have on the Anti-Counterfeiting policies put in place by rights holders and the difficulties to recover these non-negligible expenses from counterfeiters.

Also, after a rather difficult start of this billing system, probably due to successive lockdowns, this system was terminated by a repeal order dated July 29, 2022. 

Rights holders can only welcome this decision.