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Membership Service Journey: Procter & Gamble Civil Litigation Sharing

Create Time:2021-06-03

 

On May 28, the Quality Brands Protection Committee of China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (QBPC) held an online sharing meeting on Procter & Gamble’s civil litigation practices. Jayden You, Membership Service Committee Vice Chair, hosted the meeting. Benny Chen, General Counsel and Vice President of Brand Protection and William Zhou, Senior Counsel of P&G Greater China Legal Department, shared their experience and achievements over P&G's civil litigation against counterfeiting. More than 60 representatives of QBPC members attended the meeting.

P&G's civil litigation against counterfeiting is neither criminal reconciliation nor supplementary civil action in criminal proceeding. It is handled as an independent civil procedure against the defendants in P&G’s concluded criminal cases, in order to make sure that besides receiving the criminal punishment, the counterfeiters also pay a high price with civil compensation to the right holder. As a result, the intellectual property of businesses and consumer rights and interests could be better safeguarded.

 

In his presentation, William Zhou elaborated on the prosecution conditions, working mechanism, practical key points and other issues of anti-counterfeiting civil litigation, analyzed the litigation process from pre-litigation preparation to the filing of the case, review of the criminal files, in-court performance, receiving judgement or accepting settlement, and finally the enforcement. Then, through case studies, he summarized the highlights, difficulties, and problems in handling these cases.

According to Benny Chen and William Zhou, the overall strengthening of the judicial protection of intellectual property rights, the implementation of the credit reference system and the restrictions on dishonest debtor had brought about positive impact on the civil action against counterfeiting. In the meantime, they called on more enterprises to join in the civil action against counterfeiting and benefit from the strengthening of IP protection, form a cohesive force to promote the improvement and optimization of the whole business environment. Benny Chen also mentioned that P&G would carry out anti-counterfeiting litigation against more complicated online infringement and online sale of counterfeit goods in the near future.

In the end, Benny Chen said that since the start of the project in late 2019, P&G had handled more than 100 anti-counterfeiting civil cases and had built the working mechanism and operation system from zero to version 1.0.  P&G would continuously strive to realize the evolution and improvement of anti-counterfeiting civil litigation system towards industry 2.0 through practice. Thanks to QBPC’s high-quality platform and thoughtful arrangements, this group could share best practice, brainstorm new ideas, form a cohesive force and expect a better future!

The sharing was detail-oriented, and the issues lively explained. During the Q&A session, a number of questions regarding practical hot issues were raised and answered in an interactive atmosphere.

Member companies participating in this event were ABRO, Microsoft, Nike, P&G, Puma, Qualcomm, Unilever, 3M, Abercrombie & Fitch, Abbott, Allergan, Anta, Applied Materials, Bosch, BP, BRITA, Burberry, Canon, Caterpillar, CHANEL, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Continental Automotive, Danfoss, DSM, DuPont, Dyson, GlaxoSmithKline, Honda Motor, Kering, Longchamp, Mattel, MGA Entertainment, Moët Hennessy, OLYMPUS, Otis, Philips, SANOFI, Siemens, Siemens Healthineers, Tommy Hilfiger, Underwriters Laboratories, Valeo, WAHL and Huawei.