The customs authorities of the Dominican Republic are reported to have recently destroyed 45,986 counterfeit articles bearing the LOUIS VUITTON, CHANEL and LACOSTE trade marks, all of which were apparently intended for the Dominican market. While this news is recent, the seizures aren't: it seems that the articles were actually seized over a period of three years through customs surveillance.
While the Dominican authorities did not initially enforce obligations under the TRIPS Agreement or the local Industrial Property Law, the enforcement of border measures was kick-started following implementation of the
CAFTA-DR (or DR-CAFTA, as it is understandably known locally, this being the Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement with the Dominican Republic), signed in 2004.
Source: "Dominican Customs destroys almost 50,000 counterfeit articles", by Jaime R Angeles (Angeles & Lugo Lovatón, Santo Domingo), published in World Trademark Review.
