Amid EU probe, Temu mulls joining anti-fake group

Chinese e-commerce company Temu is hoping to sign up to a European agreement designed to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods on online marketplaces.

According to a Reuters report, Temu is in discussions to join the Memorandum of understanding (MoU), a voluntary agreement facilitated by the European Commission that was first set up in 2011 to bring together major online platforms, business associations and rights holders.

The MoU focuses on goods that are prone to online sales of counterfeit and pirated versions, including fast-moving consumer goods, consumer electronics, fashion and luxury goods, sports goods, films, software, and games and toys.

If accepted into the scheme, Temu would join various other e-commerce platforms including Amazon, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, Etsy, Alibaba, and Vinted, as well as brand owners like Apple, Adidas, Nike, Diageo, Luxottica, and Procter & Gamble.

In 2016, the MoU was revised to introduce key performance indicators (KPIs) to track its impact and measure its success, such as the number of suspected counterfeit goods that appear in the first 100 unique listings per platform per country after a search query and the proportion of listings removed after rights holder complaints.

News of the negotiations comes as the European Commission has launched an investigation into Temu under the Digital Services Act (DSA) over possible sales of illegal products on its platform and concerns that it does not have strong enough systems in place to prevent their sale.

Earlier this year, the trade association Toy Industries of Europe – one of several trade organisations also included in the MoU – issued a report which claimed that 100 per cent of 19 test purchases on Temu failed to meet EU toy standards.