VZCZCXRO0367
OO RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHML #0764 0680043
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 090043Z MAR 07
FM AMEMBASSY MANILA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5585
INFO RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUEAWJB/USDOJ WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUEHZS/ASEAN COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS IMMEDIATE 0261

UNCLAS MANILA 000764 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/MTS, EAP/EP, AND EB/IFD 
STATE PASS USTR FOR DKATZ 
STATE PASS USAID, OPIC 
TREASURY FOR OASIA 
USDOC FOR 4430/ITA/MAC 
USDOC PASS USPTO 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KIPR ETRD ECON RP
SUBJECT: IPR Enforcement Targeting Mall Managers 
 
REF:  MANILA 552 
 
Sensitive but unclassified.  Please handle accordingly. 
 
Summary 
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¶1. (U) The Philippine National Police raided a major shopping center 
in downtown Manila, arresting over a dozen stall owners and seizing 
13,000 counterfeit items.  The police will press charges against 
both the managers of the mall and stall owners as part of a new IPR 
enforcement strategy announced by President Arroyo last November. 
End summary. 
 
¶2. (U) On March 5, agents of the Anti-Economic Crimes Task Force of 
the Philippine National Police (PNP), commanded by Senior 
Superintendent Noel delos Reyes, raided the Robinson's Place 
shopping mall in downtown Manila and seizing 13,000 pieces of 
counterfeit Louis Vuitton merchandise with a value of almost 8 
million pesos (USD 165,000).  In the course of the raids, more than 
a dozen stall owners were arrested.  The PNP also announced that it 
would press charges against the management of Robinson's Place, 
citing a November 2006 executive order from President Gloria 
Macapagal Arroyo instructing IPR enforcement agencies to assign 
criminal liability to the operators of shopping malls that lease to 
IPR-infringing tenants (reftel). 
 
¶3. (SBU) Delos Reyes, an Embassy contact who is one of the most 
energetic and productive figures in Philippine IPR enforcement, told 
EconOff that Daniel Plane, the senior anti-counterfeiting manager of 
Louis Vuitton Pacific, contacted the PNP in late January to file a 
complaint about trafficking in counterfeit merchandise using his 
company's trademark.  Delos Reyes noted that during the past two 
years several enforcement actions against stalls selling fake Louis 
Vuitton merchandise were aborted when the company declined to file 
complaints despite PNP overtures.  On February 8, PNP sent letters 
to a number of Manila shopping malls asking for their assistance in 
preventing the sale of fake Louis Vuitton products.  When no mall 
owner responded within 30 days, delos Reyes decided to order raids 
and obtained 25 search warrants for stalls at Robinson's Place. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Delos Reyes said that laying criminal charges against the 
operators of malls where fakes are sold will now be standard 
operating procedure in his division.  He told us that he is 
attempting to reach out to the IPR task force of prosecutors at the 
Department of Justice to assist them in ensuring that prosecutions 
follow from these arrests.  He plans to file the charges by March 
¶16. 
 
¶5. (SBU) The PNP's determination to charge the mall operators in 
addition to stall owners in IPR cases in this case is encouraging. 
Delos Reyes spoke, however, of charging the managers of the Leasing 
Office of Robinson's Place rather than the owners of the Robinson's 
malls, JG Summit Holdings, owned by the Gokongwei family, one of the 
wealthiest in the country.  While delos Reyes said that this was his 
only option given Philippine criminal liability law, it would also 
be the loss of an opportunity to show those at the summit of the 
Philippine retail sector that they too will be held accountable for 
IPR violations. 
 
Comment 
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¶6. (SBU) This is excellent news for intellectual property rights 
enforcement in the Philippines.  Given the difficulty prosecutors 
often encounter in prosecuting and convicting IPR violators here, 
however, it is far from certain that charges against mall owners and 
operators will stick.  Nonetheless, we take note of the PNP's 
willingness to file charges under the November executive order and 
will be anxious to see how these cases proceed in court. 
 
Kenney