Brand protection business targets UK
announced that it will now be operating out of London in a bid to
expand into international waters.
The move targets the UK market, which is a primary market for brand and protection piracy for the cosmetics industry.
The company, which has previously opened an off site agency in Paris and has headquarters in Munich, will open the new London office with immediate effect and hopes to build on its marketing, licensing and brand protection portfolio.
"Alongside Germany, Great Britain is the principal trans-shipment centre for brand and product piracy and consequently a very important market for us", stated Hubert Neuner, joint Managing Director of P4M.
Latest customs statistics show that cosmetics counterfeiting and piracy continues to be a growing threat in Europe. In 2005, EU customs seized more than 75 million counterfeited and pirated goods with the number of customs cases involving fakes increased to more than 26,000.
With the online shopping era surging into the spot light there is an emerging need for protection from the point of sale, the websites. According to Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) is expected to reach £42 billion (€61 billion) by the end of 2007.
"A secret wave of dangerous fakes is threatening people in Europe," said EU taxation and customs commissioner Laszlo Kovacs.
"The key is to be faster than the counterfeiters. We must quickly identify, and act to deal with, new routes of fraud and constantly changing counterfeit patterns to protect our health, safety and the economy", He added.
By setting up in London the company is also generating industry awareness of its business by immersing itself within the heart of the market and being more available to its customers, where many international companies operate from Great Britain.
Wolfgang Greipl, joint managing director, said, "With the opening of our London agency we will be broadening the basis for the international expansion of our business".
The company develops software that searches all online shops, discussion forums and chat rooms for products that are suspected to be counterfeit or retailers that are thought to be grey-area importers.
It plans to use the London office as a European stepping-stone into the US market and expand its client database that currently includes major companies such as Eastpak, Lacoste and Hewlett Packard.
