Federal Coordination Effort Begins to Strengthen Germany’s Black-Market Enforcement – WWE’s Legal Team Likely Monitoring the Situation

Starting in 2025, German federal authorities, alongside customs authorities, expanded coordinated enforcement against counterfeit and black-market goods, increasing seizures and cross-border collaboration. The scope of the New enforcement actions will focus on the potential impacts on the border cross-market and intellectual property rights within the EU’s legitimate goods. Euro Commission reported 2024 to have 112 million counterfeit goods within the EU, with an estimated value of 3.8billion euros. 

WWE’s black market enforcement increase in counterfeit and black market goods reflects the trend in Europe as a whole in the enforcement of intellectual property rights. After years of counterfeiters evolving tactics, federal and local agencies have increased the scope and volume of fakes and merchandise counterfeiting in 2025.

Efforts include intercooperation between customs, police, and market surveillance units to detect and seize illegal products. Enforcement within the professional wrestling companies impacts market surveillance, brand protection, and distribution.

Federal Authorities Take Action Against Illegal Trade

In 2024, German customs indicated that the volume of counterfeit goods that have been seized has increased, along with the value of the counterfeit goods seized. The 2024 report indicated that 5 million counterfeit goods were seized with a value of 417 million euros, a value that is double that of the counterfeit goods seized in 2023. The report also identified that the volume of different counterfeit articles that were seized in 2024 was over 50% more than the volume of different articles that were seized in 2023.

In 2024, in a quote by Erik King: you have to be aware of every click you make and every deal you chase because the ugliest side of imitations is to prey on the people. This is a digital product and counterfeit trade. The offers drawn in the example are imitations of legal offers that lead users to a platform with claims of ‘bonus free spins’ or ‘no deposit,’ an offer that is often used by vendors of digital counterfeit goods.

Because of their reputation, other countries may follow Germany’s example, particularly Germany’s legal enforcement warning on imported merchandise, which has already impacted WWE’s customs enforcement evaluations.

2024 Europe Counterfeit Seizures Report

In Europe, in the year 2024 alone, the number of counterfeit goods seized reached 112 million with a combined total of 3.8 billion euros, making the reporting year a record high. 3.8 billion euros in counterfeit goods seized represents a market mix within Europe, including toys, clothing, and other branded merchandise, with toys and clothing being the counterfeit merchandise of choice.

The counterfeit toys and clothing market, along with branded merchandise, has made Germany’s market a key counterfeit market within the E.U., since Germany’s market is the primary clothing and branded merchandise market within the European Union.

Counterfeit WWE merchandise has reached the laundering and trafficking stage. WWE-branded merchandise, like t-shirts, hats, posters, and other memorabilia, is a recognized brand within the market, and its trademarks attract counterfeiters. Counterfeiters engage in unauthorized replication, online marketplace selling, as well as unauthorized replication, which has impacted pandemic-related revenue loss. Reduced revenue due to reputation loss is a primary pandemic counterfeit.

WWE’s merchandising operations have also branched into merchandising with major e-commerce companies. WWE has legal partnerships with those same companies to prevent the sale of championship belts and other WWE merchandise. This type of action is part of WWE’s litigation strategies designed to prevent fans from being exploited and to fulfill the company’s legal obligations to its exclusive licensees.

Other Impacts of Merchandise may Influence WWE’s Future Strategy

Other than the merchandise, the same strategy may be used to impact the planning of WWE’s tours and live events in Germany and other European Union nations. Concerted customs inspections of licensed merchandise, promotional merchandise, and host country merchandise for events may slow the movement of sealed parcel, courier and freight shipments to venues. Custom border regulation may be the reason for increased legal documentation and other compliance demands for licensed embrouchure suppliers for the tour.

Legal tours tend to have a significant reliance on a multitude of local and regional suppliers. If on-the-spot inspections and other forms of control become more stringent in border commercial law, the legal vendors may have increased responsibility to document and substantiate the provenance of the products being imported for sale. This also has the potential to slow the timing of the release of merchandise and the active sale of certain products during a peak sales period.

Increased enforcement expectations may extend to informal, unlicensed sellers at events, who may face greater scrutiny of their merchandise as well as have their inventory seized if law enforcement suspects the sellers are offering unlicensed or counterfeit goods.

Significant Obstacles to Cross-Border Smuggling

There have been, and continue to be, coordinated efforts to address the flow of counterfeit goods across the EU internal market and customs external borders. Customs enforcement in the EU seized an unprecedented 19.6 million counterfeit goods with an estimated market value of 1.5 billion euros in 2024.

Smugglers have been using e-commerce as well as the small parcel delivery system to move counterfeit goods, resulting in the need for customs authorities to collect and disseminate information more efficiently.

These actions are also intended to address public safety, as counterfeits such as toys and electronics can be especially dangerous. This explains the intervention of the European Anti-Fraud Office’s specialized units. A coordinated operation by this office in 2025 targeted numerous EU Member States to seize millions of dangerous counterfeit toys, evidencing the intertwining of the enforcement of intellectual property rights and the protection of consumers.

For WWE, the cultivation of cross-border enforcement may be comprised of more developed tools for the identification and interception of counterfeit branded merchandise. At the same time, legitimate streams of commerce become more complex and may face compliance issues that lead to delays, disputes, and ripple effects into sales and engagement.