Alibaba Hires Ex-Apple Investigator for Global Anti-Piracy Fight

Signalling the urgency of the difficulty, Alibaba has appointed a former Apple cybercrime and counterfeits investigator, Matthew Bassiur, to supervise its worldwide efforts to fight piracy, the corporate stated in a press release on Monday.

“Matthew’s appointment is the latest step in Alibaba Group’s comprehensive and industry-leading efforts to fight counterfeits”, said Jack Ma, Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group.

Mr. Ma, however, continues to be optimistic about his company’s long-term pledge to safeguard both intellectual property rights owners and consumers.

Bassiur joins from Pfizer where he oversaw counterfeiting operations, Alibaba said. Before that, he was Senior Director, Global Security & Counsel for IPR Enforcement at Apple.

Before Apple, Bassiur worked at Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company, and in the US Department of Justice.

CBN reckons that with Mr. Bassiur on board, Alibaba can feel confident in effectively eliminating counterfeit goods from its platform a and investigate why the selling of fake goods occur more on its platform compared to other companies platforms.

The announcement comes after Alibaba narrowly avoided being placed on the USTR’s just-published Notorious Markets list for 2015, but came in for stern criticism for not doing enough to stop counterfeits infiltrating its Taobao and Alibaba.com platforms.

Bassiur also specialised in Asian organised crime during a stint as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan, and taught intellectual property law at Beijing’s Renmin University. “Counterfeiting is a problem that challenges all forms of distribution, whether in e-commerce or offline retail”. In an intensifying Chinese e-commerce environment where companies are innovating and relentlessly striving to gain market share, Alibaba needs to get rid of fake goods to keep growing and expand its global reach.

Last week, the US Trade Representative (USTR) warned Alibaba that its activities would be monitored over the next year for signs of improvement. He will be reporting directly to the company president Michael Evans, a Goldman Sachs veteran who joined the online retailer in August this year.