Washington keeps Greenhills on list of piracy havens
An American trade watchdog kept Greenhills Shopping Center in San Juan City on its radar for counterfeit and pirated goods, with its latest watch list citing as the mall the only such establishment in the Philippines.
In its 2025 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said that despite tougher enforcement measures, there remains a large market for fake goods in the area.
“Greenhills Shopping Center is a large mall in Manila with many storefronts selling counterfeit electronics, perfumes, watches, shoes, accessories and fashion items,” the USTR said in the report released on Wednesday.
Among the measures that the USTR cited were the mall’s “three-strikes” rule against counterfeit sellers and the establishment of a help desk by the National Committee on Intellectual Property Rights (NCIPR).
Nathaniel Arevalo, acting director general of the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL), earlier described the help desk initiative as a “landmark” step toward curbing counterfeit sales in Greenhills.
The USTR said more than 300 stalls had been removed from Greenhills over the past year for selling counterfeit goods.
The agency noted that the NCIPR is also working with mall management and rights holders on a transition program to transform Greenhills into a higher-end retail complex with legitimate sellers.
“Although right holders have welcomed these developments, they also continue to observe a significant number of counterfeit goods and continue to wait and see if the transition program will resolve their concerns about the volume of counterfeit goods,” the USTR said.
Arevalo had said that counterfeit apparel accounts for about 40 percent of goods that authorities have confiscated.
A large portion of these were fake products bearing the brand of US sportswear giant Nike.
Greenhills has appeared on the USTR list yearly since 2021.
