Tiffany & Co is the latest brand to resign from the US-based International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition (IACC) after the group admitted Chinese online retailer Alibaba as a member last month.
However, Tiffany & Co did not state why it resigned from the coalition, reported The Wall Street Journal.
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Gucci and Michael Kors have also recently resigned from anti-counterfeiting coalition.
Michael Kors stated that Alibaba’s admission provides ‘cover to our most dangerous and damaging adversary’ at a time when several brands are planning to file lawsuits against the Chinese retailer for selling counterfeits on its sites.
The non-profit coalition has 250 members.
IACC said in a statement it plans to ‘review all of our policies and procedures to confirm that they meet the highest standards and that our corporate governance fits the size and scope of the IACC we have become’.
The latest resignation comes on the day when Alibaba along with IACC announced plans to expand a programme to eliminate counterfeits more swiftly from the Chinese firm’s online retail sites.
This programme was only initially open to coalition members for free but it is now available to non-members.
