The European Observatory's eighth sectorial report on the economic cost of IPR infringement, covering the economic cost of IPR infringement in the spirits and wine sector was launched earlier this week, on 26 July 2016.

In line with its mandate, the Observatory is continuing to evaluate the negative impact of counterfeiting and piracy and its consequences for legitimate businesses, governments and consumers, and ultimately society as a whole. The idea is that the results of this study, which will be followed by some other sectorial studies, pave the way towards quantification of the scope, scale and impact of infringements of intellectual property rights in the European Union. 

The bottom line is that that 4.4% of legitimate sales of spirits and 2.3% of legitimate sales of wine are lost each year due to the counterfeiting of alcoholic drinks. Those lost sales are estimated to translate into 4,800 jobs directly lost across the spirits and wine sectors in the EU, as legitimate manufacturers employ fewer people than they would have done in the absence of counterfeiting.

The link to the study is now available on the Observatory website here.

The Observatory's reports are also available in French, Italian, Spanish, German and Polish.