Lazada has collaborated with partners including HP and BMW to help fight the trade and sale of counterfeit goods across online stores in Southeast Asia.

A consortium – dubbed the Southeast Asia eCommerce Anti-Counterfeiting Working Group, or Seca – has committed to working with stakeholders to address “changing issues surrounding the trade in counterfeit goods in online retail” and to support one another in their efforts to protect intellectual property (IPR) and consumers in the e-commerce environment.

In the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic, according to Lazada, the companies involved in Seca realise the need for collaboration and coordination on issues relating to the protection of online intellectual property, between IPR owners and e-commerce platforms.

In addition, Seca says it will create an online directory, accessible at secagroup.org, that will house the intellectual property rights (IPR) protection policies, programs, tools, and resources made by Lazada to assist IPR owners to manage and prevent IPR-infringing activities on participating platforms.

It will also serve as an online repository for educating the public about IPR protection issues.

“As e-commerce continues to be a key growth driver of the digital economy, businesses will need to pay more attention to IPR protection and counterfeit trade issues,” said Cyril Chua, founder and managing partner of Robinson LLC. 

“We hope that this directory will lay a strong foundation for the future development of consensus on industry best practices and adoption of voluntary standards in the area of IPR protection across the e-commerce industry.”