PROTOCOLLO D’INTESA BETWEEN ADM AND FIERA MILANO TO COMBAT COUNTERFEITING AND PROTECT MADE IN ITALY PRODUCTS

Milan, 27 April 2022 - A memorandum of understanding was signed this morning between the Excise, Customs and Monopolies Agency (ADM) and Fiera Milano on the fight against counterfeiting and the protection of Made in Italy, with the aim of promoting opportunities to meet and raise awareness of safe and informed purchases.

The agreement is aimed at synergistically developing new forms of collaboration in order to further spread knowledge of the tools for the protection of intellectual property rights among operators in the sector. In addition, the agreement provides for moments of confrontation and support on customs procedures in the international trade fair sector and to provide companies with the most appropriate information on regulations, simplifications and customs facilitations provided by law, in order to facilitate the correct circulation of goods in international trade and to foster economic growth.

In this way, Fiera Milano's synergy with ADM, which is already present in the spaces of the exhibition centre in Rho with its own operational section, is intensified.

According to Indicam data, the counterfeiting business in Italy is worth over 12 billion euros, with damage to companies of 935 million and to the treasury of over 10 billion.

On the occasion of the signing of the protocol, a temporary museum space was inaugurated in the foyer of the Service Centre of Fiera Milano in Rho, where ADM has put on display an entirely counterfeit car, a crude reproduction of a 1958 Ferrari Dino 196 S, yellow: the instrumentation, steering wheel, seats and interiors do not conform, the dimensions of the wheelbase, length and height are different from the original, as is the use of materials. This exhibition space represents an opportunity for reflection for the entire trade fair sector and an opportunity to increasingly integrate measures to protect industrial property during trade fairs.

In fact, while waiting for the process in Parliament to develop, following the approval by the Council of Ministers of the draft law revising the Industrial Property Code that also contemplates the temporary protection of designs and models during trade fairs, CFI - Comitato Fiere Industria, has initiated a project that provides for a timely and direct information on the services that the Ministry for Economic Development (through its Directorate General for the Fight against Counterfeiting) offers on the subject of protecting industrial property rights. 

"The trade in counterfeit products is one of the most significant illegal phenomena faced by small and medium-sized companies, especially those who invest in creativity, innovation, and research," says Luca Palermo, CEO and General Manager of Fiera Milano. "The memorandum of understanding we have signed today with ADM represents a further tool to support the 36,000 companies we host every year in our exhibition spaces. An industrial and cultural heritage that must be protected and defended against counterfeiting to ensure the competitiveness and recognition of Made in Italy in the world. The partnership with ADM, moreover, corroborates a series of services that we offer our exhibitors at the Fair, including the possibility of using a special Intellectual Property Service, a quick and effective protection desk that allows immediate intervention to safeguard intellectual property rights that have been infringed or threatened during an event".

"The Excise, Customs, and Monopolies Agency," says Director General Marcello Minenna, "is engaged daily, with its women and men scattered throughout the country, in the fight against and repression of fraud, whose first victims are citizens and the healthy economy of our country. Thanks to our chemical laboratories and to cross-checks with the companies that own the original trademarks, last year we seized over 10 thousand tonnes of goods, and this represents the evidence, but above all the prospect of how much can be done in synergy with other institutions, to which this legality protocol bears witness. Together, each within its own sphere of competence, we are able to channel skills towards the common goal: not to leave the healthy part of our country to those who make profits illegally".

“As Mise and as the government,” says Deputy Minister for Economic Development, Gilberto Pichetto, “we are committed to supporting all initiatives that aim to foster the competitiveness of our companies on foreign markets, with particular attention to the trade fair sector, through the valorisation and promotion of the excellence of Italian products and in the fight against counterfeiting. This is a priority issue for us: initiatives such as the one promoted today are therefore welcome, with the signing of an agreement that goes precisely in this direction. In the awareness, moreover, that the fight against counterfeiting and, at the same time, the promotion of Industrial Property are an essential component of our industrial policy, the Mise has laid the foundations for the revision of the Industrial Property Code, an implementation measure of the PNRR that, with an allocation of 30 million euro, has the fight against counterfeiting as its fundamental pivot. Finally,' the deputy minister concluded, 'we have promoted the adoption of modern technologies such as smart labels and blockchain,and intensified the monitoring activities of CNALCIS with the aim of directing and coordinating the actions of the administrations and institutions represented in it to protect Italian products.”