Weekly News Wrap: US includes AliExpress in piracy market list; Starbucks China faces public fury over “misunderstanding”
And Shein is on a hiring spree as it shifts its key assets to Singapore.
From Bloomberg:
The United States has added online marketplace AliExpress to its list of markets for counterfeiting and piracy, an annual compilation of firms the US government deemed as the worst intellectual-property abusers and counterfeiters.
Alibaba Group’s AliExpress and Tencent’s WeChat are “two significant China-based online markets that reportedly facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting,” the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement.
The USTR first started publishing the annual list in 2011 to raise public awareness and help market operators and governments prioritize intellectual-property enforcement efforts. The 2021 review identifies 42 online and 35 physical markets that are reported to engage in or facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy.
The list has proven useful for getting companies, particularly larger ones, to do more to fight piracy and counterfeiting, said Robert Holleyman, who helped oversee the list as deputy US trade representative under President Barack Obama.
Read more here.
From Reuters
Starbucks is battling its second bout of public fury in China in less than three months, after an incident described by the US coffee giant as a "misunderstanding" at one of its stores sparked criticism from online users and state media.
The company came under scrutiny on Monday after a user on Weibo said that a number of police officers had been eating outside a Starbucks store in the southwestern city of Chongqing before they were told by staff to move away.
The user's description of the incident quickly went viral on the Twitter-like platform, prompting the ruling Communist party's mouthpiece People's Daily newspaper to issue a commentary, in which it called Starbucks "arrogant".
Chinese consumers and media have become more aggressive about protecting customer rights and monitoring the behaviour of big brands, especially from overseas.
In December, Starbucks apologised and carried out inspections and staff training across all its roughly 5,400 stores in China after a state-backed newspaper said two of its outlets used expired ingredients.
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From Reuters:
China's Shein is aggressively expanding its Singapore office after making a Singapore firm its de facto holding company, according to people with knowledge of the matter and an analysis of filings by the online fast-fashion retailer.
Chris Xu, Shein's founder and CEO, has also become a permanent resident of the city-state, according to a document.
Shein, which Xu started in 2008 in Nanjing and has since grown into a global fashion marketplace, last year de-registered its main business, Nanjing Top Plus Information Technology, a Chinese corporate filing shows.
The developments are in line with what other sources have said are revived plans by Shein to list in New York this year and Xu looking at a change in citizenship to bypass tougher Chinese rules for offshore initial public offerings.
Singapore-registered Roadget Business, which lists Xu and three others as its representatives, was established in 2019 and since late 2021 has been the legal entity operating Shein's global website, Singapore filings show.
Read more here.
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