September 17, 2004

By Roy Cokayne

Pretoria - Global Village Holdings, the listed company that owns seven flea markets countrywide, has challenged the Southern African Federation Against Copyright Theft (Safact) to take it to court over the alleged sale of counterfeit goods by some of its 2 500 traders.

Marc Israelson, the chief executive of Global Village, issued the challenge yesterday, saying that until Safact targeted landlords in the formal retail market and the merchandise of their tenants, it had "no right targeting markets with less counterfeit goods than in the formal shopping centres".

Israelson was reacting to a report in Business Report this week in which Safact said it intended launching a crackdown on flea market landlords that failed to take action against traders who sold counterfeit computer games and DVDs.

"Why is it screwing around with the small guys? When did ethics improve as a business got bigger?" he asked.

"There are container upon container of counterfeit goods coming into the country. Why aren't they doing anything about it?"

Israelson added that the amount of retail property used by the formal retail market was 50 to 100 times larger than that of the flea markets.

Fred Potgieter, the managing director of Safact, "absolutely disputed"

Israelson's claim that more counterfeit goods were sold in formal retail centres than at flea markets.

He said Safact had never had to raid a major retailer because it was selling counterfeit goods.

Potgieter said that, apart from the odd shop inside a shopping centre which it had raided, the counterfeit goods problem was confined to the informal market.

Israelson disputed this and asked why Safact did not sue Global Village.

"I doubt the [counterfeit] problem is larger in flea markets. It's another case of inequitable targeting of the disenfranchised because it is easy.

"While the government has gone out of its way to create one of the finest democracies in the world, it has performed unbelievably poorly in empowering its constituency, people we feel passionately about.

"Safact's actions are a hypocritical extension of the role played by the government so far. It's an extension of the culture of not servicing small business in this country. No matter what the government says, it doesn't do it," he said.

In return, Potgieter asked if Global Village had "any social responsibility at all to ensure that counterfeit goods are not sold on their premises?"

Potgieter stressed that Safact targeted anyone involved in the sale and distribution of pirated goods.