Parallel Imports Under Ukrainian Law

Originally published in UJBL, May 2009

The parallel market, also quite often referred to as the grey market¹, is the name given to the market that develops in goods sold outside of their authorized channels of trade. Parallel importing is, in its turn, a term generally used to identify a noncounterfeit product imported from another country without the permission of the intellectual property owner². For example, if a manufacturer of fragrances sells a perfume in the United States and in France, and a third party purchases a large quantity of the fragrance in France and imports it for resale in the United States, this is a parallel market transaction.

The practice of parallel importing occurs in the main for three reasons: