The Government of the Russian Federation has submitted to the State Duma a draft of amendments on shifting the costs of the state for the destruction, transportation and storage of counterfeit and counterfeit industrial products to the violators themselves. The amendments to the Administrative Code provide for the refusal to confiscate illegal goods. Amendments to the Criminal Code assign to violators the obligation to reimburse the procedural costs associated with the destruction of material evidence in such cases. It is planned to amend the customs legislation as well. The Ministry of Industry and Trade says that violators will have to destroy unofficial goods on their own.

According to the ministry, the volume of illegal turnover of light industry products in the country is about 1 trillion rubles, and this is 30% of the volume of imported and manufactured goods in the country in this segment. The share of suppliers using gray import schemes reaches 60%, the share of products in violation of intellectual property law is 20%. Clothing and footwear manufacturers say the share of counterfeit goods is 40-50%, technical regulation is violated by manufacturers in 45% of cases. At the same time, the maintenance of the confiscated property costs the state 12-15 rubles per cubic meter, including the costs of storage, examination, evaluation and destruction. In 2015, 590 million rubles were spent on this. Now these costs will fall on the market operators. Goods seized during criminal or administrative proceedings will be subject to destruction at the expense of the violator.

The order of destruction of goods will be approved by the Government. The persons brought to responsibility will be obliged to reimburse the costs associated with the disposal of material evidence. The calculation of costs is planned to be based on the rates of environmental collection for each group of goods to be disposed of. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the adoption of the amendments will increase budget revenues by paying mandatory payments as part of the legalization of shadow imports and will give an additional incentive to the development of Russian production.

According to the report of the Eurasian Commission, the world experience in combating counterfeiting and counterfeiting shows that over 40 years, the efforts spent by the European Union to create a system of countering illicit trafficking have not spared European countries from such products. According to the International Chamber of Commerce, the volume of revenue from sales of counterfeit products in European countries in 2016 is 5.7% of EU trade. The EEC report refers to measures to punish consumers for using unofficial products. So, in Italy, the average fine for the purchase of counterfeit goods is 10 thousand euros.

The Government approved a large-scale action plan to combat illegal trafficking last Thursday. The plan implements the corresponding strategy until 2025. The central place in the plan is occupied by labeling –  by 2024, it is planned to cover the entire array of goods in the Russian Federation. In terms of educating citizens, the document contains only measures to develop "intolerance" to unofficial goods.

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