Date: 19-09-2017 by: Banca IP Law Firm
Counterfeiting Pesticides: The way to prison
Counterfeit pesticides not only have impact on the yield of crops and life of farmers, but also pose the risk to the reputation and intellectual property of enterprises.
The disposition of criminal offense of the producing counterfeit pesticides is expected to strongly deterrence the growing complexity with sophisticated tricks in this period.
Prison sentence due to producing fake pesticides
On 14/8/2017, the defendants were judged in the first trial in the case of counterfeit pesticides production in large quantities, which were distributed to many provinces and cities in the south by the People’s Court of Binh Chanh District – Ho Chi Minh City.
Following the emergent search of this place, the authorities found thousands of materials needed for preparing counterfeit pesticides, and tens of thousands of fake articles, with different types of packaging, such as bags, boxes, bottles, of legitimate products of many reputed pesticide manufacturers.Beforehand, on December 23, 2015, the police for investigating crimes on economic management and public safety of Binh Chanh district, in collaboration with the police of Tan Nhut Commune, PC46 – Police of Ho Chi Minh City conducted an inspection of storage of goods at B21/448A, Hamlet 2, Tan Nhut Commune, Binh Chanh District. They found 4 suspects, Nguyen Vu Hoai Anh, Nguyen Van Thanh Tu, Nguyen Van Hien and Le Van Cuong, who were taking part into the production of counterfeit pesticides of brand-name products.
Considering that these activities are dangerous for the society, these defendants were charged with counterfeit pesticides producing by the jury in accordance with Article 158 of the Criminal Law.
Specifically, Nguyễn Vu Hoai Anh; Nguyen Văn Thanh Tu and Le Van Cuong; and Nguyen Van Hien were sentenced for 4 to 5; 3.5; and 3 years, respectively, in prison. All of the seized goods were destroyed by authorities.
Recently, the authorities of Tan Phu district, Ho Chi Minh City also found a packaging manufacture producing pesticide containers of a reputed company. It is worth mentioning that, this is a professional packaging manufacturing and printing company. If therefore the buyers do not pay attention to packaging, they will not be able to differentiate genuine goods from counterfeit goods.
Many cases of producing and trading counterfeit pesticides with sophisticated tricks have been revealed lately, showing that this issue becomes more serious than ever. This problem causes a huge financial loss, risks the health and life of farmers, affects the market, as well as raises the challenges to the state management agencies and authentic enterprises. The fight against counterfeiting requires all parties involved to take action seriously.
Today, according to the provisions of the law, the activities of producing counterfeit will be criminal charged. Specifically, according to Article 158 of the Criminal Law in 1999, which was amended in 2009, these activities of producing, the trading foodstuffs for livestock, fertilizers, veterinary drugs, pesticides, seeds and livestock might be sentenced for 15 years of imprisonment depending on the extent of danger to the society and consequences to occur.
The administrative offices, enterprises, and consumers are hoping that the strong actions which have been performing by authorities will be effectively to warn and prevent the growing of production and trading of counterfeit pesticides.
Actively protect ourselves from “fake storm”
According to Mr. Phan Van Tuong, the CEO of Croplife Vietnam: “In order to prevent the circulating of counterfeit pesticides on the market, it is necessary to control the manufactures through inspection, to apply the compulsory enforcement of punitive measures, and the criminal prosecution, for maintenance the friendly trading environment for authentic enterprises and the benefit of farmers.”.
In addition to application of the compulsory enforcement of punitive measures for producing, trading, and transporting counterfeit, low quality pesticides, the authorities must take great care to explain distributors and consumers so that they thoroughly understand the consequences these activities and avoid doing these.
In fact, in this situation, many enterprises have been actively protecting the consumers as well as themselves. Syngenta Vietnam, for example, in order to help consumer avoid buying counterfeit goods and validate the authenticity of products, the company introduced with a unique code on the package of some key products. When buying goods, farmers just send a message to the automatic verification system. In 3-4 seconds, they will receive the feedback messages containing the validated data. Furthermore, Syngenta also has been investigating in the production of packaging, labels with the latest technology to avoid the counterfeiting.
The CEO of Syngenta Vietnam confirmed that: “Syngenta always puts effort to ensure the best quality for every single product which we have been saling to farmers. In order to maintain sustainable and long-lasting values for our businesses, we will take strong legal action to protect our goods from counterfeiting. We always think that in addition to the drastic action of the authorities, it is necessary to develop the collaboration of enterprises, distributors and farmers to manage this problem”.
QUYNH MINH by nongnghiep.vn
