Well‑known international clothing brands appear to be deliberately and frequently allowing counterfeits of their products onto the Belgian market – supposedly for economic reasons. The high costs of destroying or recycling confiscated counterfeits have led some brand owners to simply wave the goods through rather than identify them as fake. This is according to reports in the Belgian media, following a report in the magazine WinWin by the public broadcaster VRT.
//“We can only identify counterfeit articles and set them aside. The brand owners – such as Nike and Adidas, for example – have to decide what happens to the copies of their brands. Sometimes they just say: let the counterfeits go through.”
Francis Adyns, spokesperson for the Belgian Finance Ministry and Customs, according to VRT
The legal background is clear: trademark owners must verify whether goods intercepted by customs are actually counterfeit or not. However, if they identify products as fake, they are legally obliged to have them destroyed or recycled. Recycling of seized counterfeit goods costs up to three euros per kilogram, which is up to three times more expensive than simply destroying them. “Hazardous goods, such as perfume or batteries, must be destroyed. But clothes and shoes must now be recycled,“ Francis Adyns, spokesperson for the Belgian Finance Ministry and Customs, explained to VRT.
This may present a dilemma for some brand owners: the proper disposal of counterfeit goods causes costs that some companies may not always be willing to bear. “These high costs are precisely why some brand owners prefer not to label the goods as counterfeit, and therefore allow them in,“ says Adyns.
For economic reasons, counterfeit goods might then not be declared as such and are therefore allowed to enter the market. For VRT, this practice raises questions: counterfeits are illegal – and if brand owners refrain from identifying counterfeits as such, they are indirectly allowing them to be sold.
The VRT report expressed concern that Belgium could become a gateway and hub for counterfeit goods in Europe. Every day, huge quantities of parcels arrive in Belgium from China, mainly via Liège Airport. “Of the 4.5 billion customs declarations that leave China for Europe each year, around 1 billion pass through Liège,“ explains Adyns. Previous reports show that thriving Chinese online stores such as Temu, Shein, and AliExpress are flooding Liège Airport with small parcel shipments, a large proportion of them for recipients in nearby Germany.
Several companies were asked to comment on the VRT report without providing a reply, including the well‑known fashion and sportswear manufacturers Nike and Adidas. The report also mentions that counterfeit goods can be removed from markets not only by customs but also by Belgian Economic Inspection services, which have police powers, for example during checks in shops and online stores. In such cases, the trademark owners would still have to pay for the destruction of the counterfeit goods found.
