Money Well Spent? Why Fashion Companies Spend Big on Lobbying Governments

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would eliminate tariffs on textiles and apparel between 12 nations, including the US — the world’s largest consumer of apparel — and Vietnam, the third largest emerging market apparel supplier after China and Bangladesh. In 2014, US companies paid $400 million in tariffs on shoes imported from TPP countries, according to the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America.

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This year, driven by the TPP, fashion companies have spent big on lobbying. In the first half of 2015, the National Retail Federation spent $3 million on lobbying the US government; Target, $770,000; JC Penney, $410,000; Gap, $160,000, according to US Federal Lobbying Disclosures.
Compared to the sums spent by an industry like pharmaceuticals, this is small change. (According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 10,616 lobbyists have spent nearly $1.63 billion this year.)
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Still, corporate lobbying isn’t always successful.
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The Design Piracy Prohibition Act (DPPA) would have given designers three years of intellectual property protection if they registered a new design within six months. The CFDA hired two lobbyists, one with ties to each political party, and the bill gained bipartisan support, including from high-profile senators such as Hillary Clinton. Designers including Zac Posen and Narciso Rodriguez argued the case in Washington. However, it still failed to pass.
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“Creating legislation from scratch, to benefit a specific industry, that is a much more difficult challenge,” explains Susan Scafidi, academic director of the Fashion Law Institute at Fordham University, who helped draft the proposed design protection bill. “Because you have to develop the interest in creating any regulation at all.”
http://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/money-well-spent-why-fashion-companies-spend-big-on-lobbying-governments