NEW DELHI: India today said it will withdraw its case from the WTO against EU on wrongful seizure of drug consignments of Indian companies, only when all the members of the 27-nation bloc amend their rules to prevent recurrence of such incidents. 

While the European Union (EU) had accepted India's stand that the seizure of generic drugs was wrong, its member countries need to amend their rules on the issue. 

"It (the application) will only be withdrawn when all the EU countries ratify that amendment," Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said in an interaction with members of the Indian Women's Press Corps here. 

He said that EU had given a written statement that they will amend the circular to stop the seizures. 

After that assurance, India has put the case under "suspended animation" and was not pursuing the dispute. 

India, together with Brazil, had filed a case against the EU, protesting against its customs rules that allowed officials in member countries such as the Netherlands and France to confiscate generic drugs in transit to countries in Africa and Latin America. 

In the last couple of years, there had been about 17 such cases where consignments belonging to reputed Indian drug manufacturers have been seized. 

The seized medicines, which were generic or off-patent in India, were impounded following complaints from European companies that held valid patents to these medicines in their own countries. 

India argues that such seizures are against the multilateral intellectual property agreement, Trips, as the medicines were off-patent both in India and the country where they were being exported. 

Almost half of India's drug exports worth USD 22 billion are generics.

April 6^th, 2011

Source: The Economic Times – India Times

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