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China (February 8, 2022)—Customs officials in China recently spotted and seized a shipment of counterfeit L-Acoustics loudspeakers; following confirmation that the ARCS II speakers were indeed fake, the customs agents destroyed and recycled them.
Counterfeit goods are nothing new, but while a bogus Rolex watch just stops telling time, a counterfeit loudspeaker can be a genuine safety hazard. Hastily made from makeshift parts with no need to meet safety standards, shoddy fake speakers can put the public, crews and even other legitimate gear at risk.
GACC DEMOLISHES FAKE LOUDSPEAKERS
The counterfeit loudspeakers were spotted and sidelined by the Youyiguan Customs team of the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC). The GACC is a crucial border agency, and one of the busiest trade thoroughfares under its jurisdiction is the Youyiguan border gate, located in Pingxiang on the China-Vietnam border. The gate accounts for 60 percent of all import/export volume among the gates in China’s Guangxi manufacturing region.
The Youyiguan GACC team conducted an investigation and determined that the suspicious ARCS II were indeed fake, using information provided by L-Acoustics (for instance, all L-Acoustics products are manufactured in Europe, not China). As a result, the speakers were officially seized and then taken to a recycling facility, where they were forcefully dismantled. GACC officials oversaw the speakers’ demise, confirming to the company that the boxes had been effectively destroyed and their parts recycled. The counterfeiters were then prosecuted.
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“We thank the Youyiguan Customs team and our local counsel, Wanhuida, for their cooperation,” said L-Acoustics legal counsel Laurent Ostojski in a statement. “This is but one small step in our anti-counterfeiting initiative, and we’re poised to take legal action against any perpetrators in the future.” According to Ostojski, L-Acoustics dedicates significant financial and human resources to remove counterfeits from the market. “These products can be deceptively similar to ours on the outside but feature poor quality components and are marketed without any warranty, service, or electrical or mechanical certification,” said Stephane Ecalle, director of Market Intelligence at L-Acoustics. “The role of our task force is not only to defend our intellectual property by constantly monitoring the market, but also to alert the public on safety risks for users, and the legal risks associated with ownership or resale of counterfeits.”
