UK officials seize counterfeit SKF bearings
14 Mar 2011
London – Trading Standards officers have seized around one tonne of counterfeit SKF bearings in a 9 March swoop on the premises of a non-authorised SKF bearing distributor in the UK.
The distributor, said SKF, has cooperated fully with the authorities, informing them that a further 1.5 tonne of various bearing types, purchased on the open market, are currently being shipped to them.
“We are actively working at a national and global level to ensure that manufacturers and traders of counterfeit products are identified and brought to justice,” commented an SKF spokeperson.
SKF warns that the unpredictable quality of counterfeit bearings means that they have the potential to fail catastrophically. The results could include expensive damage to capital equipment or serious injury to plant personnel.
Over the last few years SKF has carried out several operations of this kind in countries such as Germany, Italy, Holland, Greece, Sweden, China and the US, seizing hundreds of tonnes of counterfeit bearings and, more recently, in Spain where police authorities confiscated 15 tonnes of counterfeit bearings.
“Together with other leading bearing manufacturers we are committed to fight both the manufacture and distribution of counterfeit products,” said an SKF statement.
“This is beyond protecting the SKF brand. It is also about safeguarding the public from a potentially serious safety risk and from being cheated. The best way to safeguard product authenticity is sourcing SKF products through our authorised distributor network,” the company added.
