ECJ ORDERS THAT EU COUNTRY REGULATORS HAVE NO DUTY TO ENFORCE GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION RULES FOR FOREIGN DRINKS
February 1st, 2008
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union's (EU) protected designation of origin (PDO) system that defends scores of EU traditional drinks from being copied outside their home region has been weakened. The European Court of Justice has ruled official consumer watchdogs have no legal duty to police these rules for imported products. So if a Hungarian vineyard was producing sparkling wine calling it Champagne, French regulators would have to fight in Hungarian courts, not Hungarian consumer authorities. The division of responsibility over policing these protected drinks ...
Full access to this article can be arranged with permission from the client that first ordered it. Please contact us to request access. Entries are uploaded to our archive at least one year after being published by a client – free access is restricted to International News Services journalists for background research only. The article date indicates when copy was filed to a client, not when posted to this archive. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.