On 12 and 13 November 2020, the World Customs Organization (WCO) organized the 17th Counterfeiting and Piracy (CAP) Group Meeting using the KUDO platform with the participation of 87 delegates.

Established since 2009, the CAP Group provides a platform for discussion about the mechanism for border measures on trademark counterfeiting and copyright piracy. It seeks to instigate a meaningful discussion of views, experiences, practices and initiatives of Customs administrations as well as the WCO Capacity building activities for Members requesting assistance.

Due to the disruption caused by the covid-19 pandemic, the 17th session of the CAP meeting was conducted first in a document-based and virtual manner from 16 October to 9 November 2020 on the WCO CLiKC! platform. During this phase, Members nominated the delegate of Burkina-Faso, Mr Laurent Gansoré as the Chair the meeting.

This year’s meeting was also marked by the discussions on Customs’ capabilities during a pandemic, with a particular focus on the outcomes of the WCO emergency operation Stop, which saw the participation of 99 Customs administrations, as well as the presentation on the WCO IPR CENcomm, the new channel for exchanging information. The meeting also approved the way forward for the WCO’s work on the IPR, Health and Safety Programme, the IPR Handbook and the IPR Self-Assessment Tool.

The WCO Director of Compliance and Facilitation, Mr. Pranab Kumar Das, congratulated the participants for the dynamic discussions and emphasized the importance of a coordinated approach to minimize the overall impact of COVID-19 on economies and societies. He stressed the leading role of the WCO and its Members to ensure effective and secure trade, while protecting consumers and businesses around the world.

Prior to the CAP, on 11 November 2020, the WCO organized virtually the 7th Rights Holders Consultative Group (RHCG). The purpose of the RHCG meeting is to ensure an even stronger cooperation and communication between rights holders, the private sector, WCO Member administrations, and the WCO - IPR, Health and Safety Programme. This one-day meeting gathered 45 participants from around the world for an open dialogue and discussion on E-commerce and also the rights holders’ perspective, contributions from intermediaries, the ways that datasets can be combined/matched/connected and its use to improve the accuracy of risk profiling and risk analysis of container consignments, among other things.