Grohe holds a prestigious awards ceremony to honour Sharjah Economic Development Department

After conducting several confiscations in collaboration with Sharjah Economic Development Department (SEDD), GROHE, the world's leading premium brand for sanitary fittings, held an awards ceremony to recognize the continuous efforts of SEDD and dedication towards fighting fraud and protecting consumer rights.

The awards ceremony which was held at Radisson Blu in the Emirate of Sharjah was attended by H.E. Ali Salim Al Mahmoud, Chairman of SEDD and Simon Shaya, GROHE’s General Manager and President at GROHE East Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa, in addition to SEDD’s employees and distinguished guests of business partners and members of the press. During the awards ceremony 49 SEDD employees were awarded with certificates and plaques.

During his speech, H.E Ali Salim Al Mahmoud reaffirmed the Department’s determination to fight all types of commercial fraud and protect consumer rights by collaborating with all stakeholders locally and nationally. He also highlighted the Department’s plans and roles in protecting the rights of producers and manufactures In addition to offering the consumers the original products in the local Emirati markets.

Al Mahmoud said that commercial fraud crimes have become a dangerous global phenomenon that has serious implications on the international economic scene. The dangers of this phenomenon lie in the fact that it’s planned and executed by illegal organizations that mass produce fake products and target national and international markets.

The Sharjah Economic and Development Department and its highly qualified and trained employees have implemented the latest technologies to fight this issue, which resulted in a lot of raids and the confiscation and destruction of the counterfeit products in addition to taking legal procedures against the violators. His Excellency thanked GROHE for the kind gesture and for awarding SEDD employees for their efforts.

On the same note, Khalifa Misbah Al Ketbi, Director of the Control and Protection of Trade Department, said that the Department adopts new methods in fighting commercial fraud and it has trained its employees on the latest practices. He also stressed that fighting this phenomenon, monitoring it and taking it through the right administrative and legal procedures fall under the jurisdiction of his department.

Al Ketbi pointed out that the consumer has an important role in the reporting of violations to complement the full cooperation between SEDD, trademark owners and agents to provide consumers with high-quality goods and services at reasonable prices in a competitive market. He said that dealers can generate reasonable profit and return on investments, achieve community well-being and stability, as well as economic growth and prosperity, away from commercial fraud and from buying counterfeit goods. He indicated that the life of the original products is up to four times longer than the life span of counterfeit goods, in addition to the large difference in the quality of goods.

Expressing his gratitude to SEDD, Simon Shaya, GROHE’s General Manager and President at GROHE East Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa, said: “At GROHE, we are thankful for the commitment and diligence shown by The Department and its employees to this cause. We believe that it’s tremendously vital for every company to have a partner such as SEDD, as their commitment to fighting commercial fraud helps in making the UAE and the emirate of Sharjah a safer place for businesses and trademark owners.”

The collaboration between GROHE and SEDD started at the beginning of 2011. Throughout this period, this partnership with the support of Saba IP, GROHE managed to lead and conduct several raids in the Emirate of Sharjah. These raids resulted in confiscating over 21,000 counterfeit products in April 2011 and over 2,000 counterfeit products in September 2011. GROHE will continuously work with SEDD in the future to help expand the UAE’s economy and protect GROHE’s trademark and brand image.