Alibaba on Monday blamed ambiguous laws and lax penalties at the root of its difficulties in enforcing laws against counterfeiting, as the firm lobbies to be taken off a US blacklist of marketplaces notorious for fakes. In a statement, the e-commerce giant said it reported almost 4,500 leads on counterfeiting operations to authorities in 2016, but they resulted in just 33 convictions, a vast majority of which secured probation. “Ambiguities in the law have meant that enforcement officers have found it difficult to classify and quantify cases of counterfeiting, let alone commence legal proceedings,” the firm said. According to Reuters, Alibaba ramped up its anti-counterfeit campaign after its top e-commerce platform, Taobao, was returned to an annual US Trade Representative blacklist of “notorious marketplaces” in December, following a four-year absence.
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