The completion and consolidation of the EU internal market has relied on the rule-making activities of private actors for more than three decades now. Following the regulatory technique of the New Approach, EU institutions have entrusted standard-setting organisations, composed of experts and representatives of the industry, to elaborate technical standards that prescribe voluntary technical requirements to be fulfilled by a product, process, service or system.

Recently, the General Court in the HELL coffee case has confirmed that a descriptive foreign language term (German word HELL) can be granted protection under EU trade mark law (Hell Energy v. EUIPO, T-323/20).

Some of the favourite expressions of online platform providers around the world are that they ‘only offer a platform’ and are ‘in no way responsible for statements made or goods offered by third parties on their platform’. However, recent US case law held Amazon liable for physical harm caused by goods sold by a third party on their platform. This newsletter provides an overview of this case law and looks into the question of whether the EU Product Liability Directive allows a similar approach.

German courts have been on the news a lot lately and for good reasons: From siding with young environmental activists fighting against climate change to prosecuting war criminals and terrorists that other jurisdictions have failed to prosecute, the German courts are actively trying to fight injustice, even when such wrongs have been committed outside of its sovereign territory.

Achieving a sustainable way of life requires massive societal changes and (private international) law should enable, rather than hamper, the realization of such essential goals.

The DSA reflects the issue of advertising in its draft Art. 24, mandating transparency in advertising displayed by platforms – the traditional ad archives, discussed above. However, the proposal makes no acknowledgement whatsoever of new advertising business models emerging from content monetization.

When we talk about Trade Marks Trolls we don’t mean the ugly creature that might come to your mind. Instead, we speak about practices that constitute an abuse of trade mark law. So, how to defend yourself against such behaviour?

This blog post is a re-elaboration of my interview this morning with Luca Bertuzzi, Digital & Media Editor from EurActiv, available here.

What was promised by the GDPR (Art. 80 and Rec. 142) is now a reality! 

Last July, an international organization meeting in an Asian city took historic decisions that will influence the fate of three European cities for years to come. At its 44^th session, held in Fuzhou and online, the World Heritage Committee (WHC) stripped Liverpool of its World Heritage List (WHL) title. The same day, Vienna was removed from the List of World Heritage in Danger, and Venice narrowly escaped being included in it.