Alibaba taking fight to counterfeiters

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba says it invested more than $161m tackling counterfeit goods from the start of 2013 through November 2014.

The company already employs around 2,000 people tackling the issues and plans to add another 200 people to its taskforce next year, along with 5,400 volunteers who carry out online surveillance and selective inspection to find fraudulent goods.

The increase in spend is a significant advance on Alibaba's earlier spending, which according to a company statement released earlier in 2014 was around $16m a year.

Just a few years ago Alibaba was notorious as a marketplace frequented by counterfeiters, with illicit goods such as copies of branded products as well as batches of copycat labels and holograms found on sale.

The company - which own Chinese eBay-like platform Taobao - has been striving to set its house in order since it announced plans to become a public company and in the face of growing pressure from luxury brand companies, who banded together to sue Alibaba in August for not doing enough to clamp down on the trade but withdrew their compliant after "constructive dialogue" with the e-commerce giant.

It eventually listed on the New York stock exchange in September - after a fruitless bid to carry out an initial public offering in Hong Kong - and was valued on its debut at $233bn. In the third quarter of this year, Alibaba's retail websites sold around $90bn in merchandise, making it the biggest online marketplace in the world.

"We bear a serious responsibility in this fight against counterfeits," said Jonathan Lu, Alibaba's chief executive, in a statement.

The company said it had worked with Chinese law enforcement agencies in more than 1,000 counterfeiting cases this year and had removed more than 90m suspect listings.

As a result, 400 suspects from 18 counterfeiting rings were arrested while 200 brick and mortar stores, factories or warehouse involved in production and selling of counterfeits were closed.