We are pleased to announce that the next LIDC Congress will take place in Vienna from October 9th to 12th 2025
The general motto of this international conference is: “Where Competition, IP and Unfair Competition meet!” Digital and green change as well as other current subjects will be in this legal focus of Antitrust, Intellectual Property and Unfair Commercial Practices.
The International League for Competition Law (LIDC) is a longstanding international association which was created in 1930. The LIDC is composed of almost twenty national chapters and counts more than 800 members. This association is a unique platform for exchanging and developing ideas and knowledge at the intersection of competition, intellectual property and unfair competition law, both at a national and an international setting.
Every year, the LIDC organises an international Congress to study in particular two questions related to this legal area. National Groups or individual members write a national report on each question. The national reports constitute the basis for an in-depth international report discussed during the Congress. All the reports are published by Springer and LIDC in the series “LIDC Contributions on Antitrust Law, Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition”. Furthermore – as part of this conference – numerous current lectures and panel discussions will be held on current topics in the areas of antitrust law, intellectual property and fair trade law with a wide range of international experts and speakers. In Vienna we expect up to 10 panels with about 50 speakers national and international, coming also from the European Commission, the United States and Asia. We are glad to inform that the two study questions to be prepared by the reporters and discussed during the Vienna Congress are as follows: Question A: Is the concept of the abuse of relative market power beyond market dominance necessary for a functioning competition and what criteria should be used to assess it? Question B: What responsibility or obligations should online platforms have when it comes to eliminating infringements by their users, especially in the areas of IP and unfair competition? Question A – Background & Context: The term “relative market power”, also known in other jurisdictions as “economic dependence”, “superior or unbalanced bargaining power” or “significant imbalance in commercial relations”, is used to describe circumstances in which a company exploits its superior bargaining position vis-à-vis business partners. These rules exist all over the world, from Europe to South Korea or Brazil. In contrast to the traditional concept of dominance, the concept of relative market power is concerned with the analysis of asymmetric dependencies or bargaining positions in business-to-business (B2B) relationships, irrespective of a dominant market position or monopoly power in the traditional sense. This is relevant to business-to-business relationships, including distribution, franchising, subcontracting, supply chains and others, in both traditional and digital markets. This additional tool for regulating unilateral conduct has recently received renewed attention, reflecting a broader trend in the regulation of business-to-business (B2B) relationships. In recent years, several jurisdictions in Europe, including France, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria, have introduced or updated legislation targeting the abuse of economic dependence or relative market power. The proliferation of these legislative measures highlights the need for transparent, predictable and enforceable criteria for assessing relative market power, situations of dependence and imbalances in bargaining power in the B2B context. It also raises the question of the extent to which such provisions serve to maintain effective competition and thus form part of competition, anti-monopoly or antitrust law as it is commonly understood. This study aims to examine how these criteria are applied in practice, the challenges of enforcement and the wider implications of this regulatory trend for competition policy and the economy. Question B – Background & Context: The starting point for this topic remains the long-standing liability privilege of intermediaries: online platforms that provide pure intermediary services remain exempt from liability for illegal third-party content and have no general obligation to monitor the content posted by their users. However, some recent laws, such as the Digital Services Act (DSA) of the European Union (EU), establish uniform rules that require hosting providers to have a mechanism in place to allow third parties to report suspected illegal content. In the future, such a mechanism could be the starting point for the liability of providers who do not act quickly after notification and remove prohibited content. In addition, trusted flaggers, as entities designated by national digital coordinators, are new players in this “notice and action” procedure, in which the operator of an online platform must immediately block offers if it becomes aware of a clear violation under the applicable law. Another innovation is the “Good Samaritan” rule in this area, which ensures that online intermediaries do not lose their liability privilege just because they voluntarily review user content. This clause is intended to give providers legal certainty when they have their employees check uploaded content to detect infringements proactively. Interesting developments have also emerged in non-EU jurisdictions. For example, in Brazil, the Civil Framework for the Internet, a federal law enacted in 2014, is currently under challenge before the Supreme Federal Court, the country’s constitutional court. Central to the issue are legal provisions requiring a court order before illegal content on online platforms can be removed, potentially altering the dynamics of the notice-and-takedown process. Although these current developments represent a new basis for familiar principles, the significance of their specific details for the protection of intellectual property and unfair competition can be important. Moreover, the practical importance of special entities as experts at detecting certain types of illegal content and notifying online platforms will become apparent with the first experiences on it. Under the DSA, the notices they submit are supposed to be prioritised as they are expected to be more accurate than messages an average user submits. Regardless of jurisdiction, there needs to be a balance between the aim to tackle illegal content online and fundamental rights such as freedom of expression or the right to a fair trial. National groups are invited to provide an account of the emerging trends and cases before courts in their respective jurisdictions from a legal and practical perspective in the online sector.
