• Many of the largest Chinese e-commerce companies found themselves in the sights of the U.S. Trade Representative, Thursday, due to their alleged roles in the buying and selling of counterfeit goods online.
• Affiliates of Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) and Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU), as well as PinDuoDuo (NASDAQ:PDD) were among those companies on the latest "notorious markets" list by the Office of the United States Trade Representative [USTR], Ambassador Katherine Tai. The list includes 42 online sites, and 35 traditional outlets that Tai said are involved in "substantial trademark counterfeiting" and copyright piracy.
• "The global trade in counterfeit and pirated goods undermines critical U.S. innovation and creativity and harms American workers," Tai said, in a statement announcing the list of alleged offenders. "This illicit trade also increases the vulnerability of workers involved in the in the manufacturing of counterfeit goods to exploitative behavior."
• Alibaba's (BABA) AliExpress, a business-to-consumer e-commerce site made the list, with the USTR saying, "Known sellers of counterfeit goods on AliExpress remain prevalent, purportedly due in part to the lenient seller penalty system and a removal process that does not deter sellers from continuing to offer counterfeit goods. Another Alibaba-owned company, Taobao, made the list again because of the number of counterfeit goods and transactions that appeared on the site.
• Baidu Wangpan, a cloud-storage provider owned by Baidu (BIDU), was cited for allowing pirated videos and other content to be shared between customers. Tencent's (OTCPK:TCEHY) WeChat, and its Chinese site, Weixin were also on the list for several instances in which buyers and sellers can easily exchange counterfeit products.
• The USTR said PinDuoDuo (PDD), China's second-largest e-commerce app by user numbers, has implemented "significant improvements" to anti-counterfeiting tools and processes. However, PinDuoDuo (PDD) was also criticized for factors such as "moving in the wrong direction, with delays in takedowns, lack of transparency with takedown procedures, more burdensome and expensive processes, [and] less effective seller vetting."
• On Wednesday, investor ChaAlrlie Munger cited Alibaba (BABA) as one of his favorite recent investments at his Daily Journal (DJC) company's annual meeting.