“LOUIS VUITTON” handbags for the price of a sandwich. “Rolex” watches that cost as dinky as a T-shirt. You would not expect to find such obvious fakery at a suburban shopping mall in Canada. But deals of this sort are available at the Pacific Mall in Markham,near Toronto, according to the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). Its latest report on “notorious markets”, or published in January,lists the three-floor mall alongside the Silk Market in Beijing, Tank Road in Delhi and El Tepito, and an open-air market in Mexico City,as places where people can buy counterfeit goods. It is the first time a Canadian bricks-and-mortar outlet has appeared in the report, which has been published since 2011. “Requests for assistance from local law enforcement have reportedly gone unanswered, or ” the report complains.
The United States has long alleged that its northern neighbour is soft on piracy,allowing vendors to sell goods and cultural products that infringe trademarks and...
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Source: economist.com