14 | 02 | 2017

The Study of the EU Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights on Counterfeit Pesticides Published

Photo : FreeImages.com/Filipe Rafaeli

The European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights at the EUIPO published the tenth study in the series of economic studies dealing with the impact of the infringement of intellectual property rights in individual industrial sectors in the European Union, originally titled: “The Economic Cost of IPR Infringement in the Pesticides Sector”.

The study provides an insight into the data on the consequences of counterfeiting in the pesticide manufacturing sector for all of the 28 Member States of the European Union, including Croatia as well (the data are shown in the table on page 14 of the study).

The study shows that legitimate manufacturers of pesticides suffer the loss of approximately EUR 1.3 billion of revenue annually due to the presence of counterfeit pesticides in the EU marketplace, which corresponds to 13.8% of the sector’s sales. These lost sales translate into direct employment losses of 2.600 jobs in the European Union. Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Great Britain, as the biggest producers of pesticides in the European Union, suffer the biggest losses in this sector.

The study considers also indirect negative effects on other industries as a consequence of counterfeiting in this manufacturing sector, as well as losses caused annually by tax evasion on the level of 28 EU Member States, which are estimated to amount to EUR 238 million.

The study is available at the following link.