News
Summer Review 2026: A Digest of Key Developments in the world of IP Crime
POLICY, STRATEGY AND REGULATORY
De minimis crackdown, EU and US. Brussels’s new €3-per-product-type parcel charge and Washington’s parallel changes are tightening and squeezing the old “ship direct, duty-free” model. However, early data shows it isn’t curbing volumes as large overseas companies have moved to warehousing programmes in key countries.
For example, data reveals that Temu’s EU growth is up over 60%, Shein’s up around 20%. This is pushing platforms to pre-position stock in local (“semi-managed”) warehouses instead. This can relocate the counterfeit risk from the border to the high street, making Trading Standards, not Customs, the clear front line.
A related sign of change might be that Shein has all but pulled out of Google Ads, and Temu has roughly halved its spending.
USTR Notorious Markets List. The 2026 review opened in August with a new “superfakes” focus, “near-identical luxury counterfeits”. This is likely to shift the evidence rights-holders should submit towards supply-chain and manufacturing quality. Whether ultra-low-cost online e-commerce platforms are finally named remains open.
EU Counterfeit and Piracy Watch List 2027. Consultation closed 21st September; the list itself isn’t due to be published until Q2 2027, as this is the EU’s main lever for naming vulnerable or non-compliant non-EU marketplaces and physical markets, it is worth having fed evidence in already.
Fake goods in critical industries. The OLAF/EUIPO critical-sectors conference and EMPACT’s first operational year have flagged this as a growing concern. However, the first EMPACT Operational Action Plan is still awaited.
The EU’s Product Identifier (PID) regime. Possibly the most consequential change of the summer. From 1st November, every consumer parcel into the EU needs a valid product ID or risks being held at the border. Instead, compliant shipments get fast “green-channel” clearance. Crucially, a single inspection can now trace one fake item’s code back through an entire batch and include the seller. As result this becomes a genuine “follow the goods inland” capability, with real legal teeth (see Article 252(b)). The catch is that it depends on the EU Customs Data Hub, which doesn’t fully land until 2028. Therefore, the legal power is ahead of the operational capacity to use it.
EU design invalidity regulation. A new Commission regulation aligning design-invalidation procedures with trademark rules reached Council in August. This sees as a parallel legal route against counterfeit product design.
The EU customs “adoption package.” Regulation (EU) 2026/2108, the recast Union Customs Code, was agreed by Council and Parliament and published on 19th September. In short, it creates a new EU Customs Authority (in Lille) and a centralised EU Customs Data Hub, which will be phased in by 2034. A new parcel handling fee is also included from 1 November. Current reporting is “quiet” on IP-specific provisions, including a live window to get trademark and design recordals built into the Data Hub specifications.
The US traceability model. Since 8th July, around 600 US product categories need a safety certificate and a unique identifying code before they even arrive. In effect the same “unique code” logic as the EU’s PID regime, which arrived independently. When the two largest markets converge on identical tools, it becomes harder for bad actors who are then likely to shop for the weakest regime.
OPERATIONAL ENGAGEMENTS
World Cup and beyond. The tournament triggered a genuinely global enforcement wave, which included DOJ’s Operation Offsides (1,000+ pirate-streaming domains seized), the Latin America-wide “Operation Red Card” (eight countries, Bogotá-coordinated), Hong Kong Customs’ big-data takedown of 50 World Cup-goods cases, and CBP Houston’s $9m seizure. Post-tournament, CBP Norfolk and Hong Kong both still report displaced stock moving through supply chains and expect a late dump onto resale markets as enforcement attention fades.
Replicable models — China/Hong Kong. Hong Kong Customs’ big-data, cross-boundary monitoring of individual online sellers is the clearest exportable template and can be regarded as being transferable to any jurisdiction with marketplace data access.
“EU Pirates.” The Frontex-led “Pirates 4” Joint Action Day, coordinated via EUIPO’s IP Enforcement Portal and Europol’s SIENA system, saw Serbia, Ukraine and the UK seize 1.7 million items worth €17.4 million, by concentrating actions at the Kapitan Andreevo crossing. The UK took part despite sitting outside the EU customs union. This is a quiet post-Brexit cooperation and a signal worth watching for repetition.
India drugs bust. Delhi’s Drugs Control Department traced 481 counterfeit rabies-vaccine units from a Bhagirath Palace raid, via an invoice trail, to a Kanpur supplier, which triggered a cross-state agency referral. This is considered by many experts to be a low-cost and replicable model for any jurisdiction with devolved enforcement bodies, and a serious public-health product issue.
Project A.S.S.E.T. Europol’s 31-country cross-border asset-tracing taskforce, pairing law enforcement with private-sector partners, had its most successful operational week in May. It’s the clearest existing architecture for an IP-specific asset-recovery capability. However, there has been no public reporting or evidence of it being applied specifically to a counterfeiting case. This is worth pressing directly with Europol.
To watch for: A dedicated EU counterfeit-medicines network. A named INTERPOL operation beyond Project A.S.S.E.T, and any new Chinese enforcement strategy (beyond CNIPA’s existing work plan). None have surfaced so far from primary sources, but there “rumblings” and as such these areas worth watching
UK CHANGES
PIPCU. Two notable results this summer: the £18.5m, 220,000-shirt World Cup counterfeit operation (six arrests), and City of London Police’s sentencing of Rehan Ahmed to 3.5 years for an industrial-scale counterfeit vinyl-pressing operation (2,791 fake records, £2.7m in sales, 108 artists affected).
POCA reform. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 (Schedule 21) widens the lifestyle-offence by triggering and reaching into hidden assets. This can be a genuine lever for Trading Standards-led seizures once commencement regulations and CPS guidance land. Readers should be aware that guidance is still awaited and that the window to help shape this is now open.
Customs enforcement report. The December 2025 UK Customs IP Enforcement Report is the latest update. It reports that £500m+ of fake goods were stopped in 2021–23, but seizures fell from 3 million articles (2021) to just over 1 million (2023), a trend that probably reflects a focus on small-parcel evasion, rather than fewer fakes arriving.
Home Office asset recovery. A genuinely strong year has been reported with confiscation orders against counterfeiting/IP/forgery offences hitting £93.5m (year to March 2026). This falls withing the 84% “other offences” category. It reveals a six-year high, while restraint orders rose 37% to £677m and confiscations overall rose 64% to £367.3m. The bottom line is that IP crime isn’t riding the wave; it’s doing more than its share within other category offences. The IPO’s own Trading Standards survey reinforces the picture as 64% of local authorities now see links between counterfeiting and organised crime, which is up roughly a third year-on-year.
“Second-hand, not second-best.” The IPO’s continuing campaign with Vinted, targeting resale platforms used to shift counterfeits and raising consumer awareness alongside enforcement is worth noting and watching.
That’s the summer in the round. If anything is of particular interest, or you’re aware of other developments, reforms or changes worth folding into the picture, please do get in touch.
Phil Lewis
Chairman and Policy Advisor