Addis Abeba City Police has confiscated close to 8,690 pirated satellite dish. Police suspects the items to be imported to confuse customers with the original brand of EUROSTAR. In this process two warehouses in Merkato were raided by members of Addis Ketema district police department.
The raid has come after the appeal by the lawyers of EUROSTAR Communication Plc. to the police that there are counterfeit merchandise mimicking their items and confusing customers which in a bigger scale, is affecting its market share. The appeal was issued in June 2016. The company in the letter argued that it is loosing its benefits from the market because of the presence of counterfeit commodities. It also indicates that the forged dishes from China are now being sold in Addis Abeba and other regions. EUROSTAR has finally requested for a lunch of investigation on the case.
The alleged fake brands namely, Eurostat, Eurosolar, EurQstar Lifestar were among the brands confiscated satellite dishes which were said to confuse buyers.
During the raid, which took place on September 1, 2016, police identified two warehouses that were being used by traders to sell their counterfeited satellite dishes.
EUROSTAR claim that it has already secured a trademark license from Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office in a year 2009. Since then the company, based in Indonesia has been importing dishes, receivers along with their accessories into the Ethiopian market. It is said to cover more than 75pc of the market demand a few years ago. Based on this market share estimate, the company used to get two to three million dollars of annual turn over, just from the Ethiopian market.
“This however declined by almost 50pc,” Junaid I Khan, senior manager-overseas sale for EUROSTAR told Fortune. “We have lost many local customers because of this and are now left with few dedicated distributors.”
This was not the first time that the company has tried to solve the problem and made an appealed to the authorities. Few years back the case had reached to the police. Back then the the investigation failed because of a lack of evidences.
The company has also claimed that it is not only dishes that are being faked but also other accessories including receivers box and the cables too are being forged.
“We will look this case separately, but for now we focused only the dishes,” said Khan.
Moreover the company will work with Ethiopian Customs & Revenues Authority (ERCA) to identify the problems.
EUROSTAR Group, a veteran in the industry with its presence in over 20 countries mainly across Africa and Asia. It involves in electronics business, real estate and consumer goods. It have started its operation in 1982 with perfume and commodity trading.
According to the law of the land on registered trademark of a respective products they have to differentiate it from the one used by similar producer, in appearance in the words, design, colour and overall composition. The marks should not be filled with confusing products which believed that finally will lead unfair trade competition.
“We shall take similar action in due course while referring to other products by the Company,” said Khan.
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