Attorney Dr. Sebastjan Kerčmar participated as an expert for Slovenia at the IDI – International Distribution Institute international conference held in Turin from June 5 to June 7, 2025. The conference was attended by leading legal experts in commercial law from around the world, including lawyers, professors, and heads of legal departments from prominent international corporations. The conference was also attended by attorney candidate Marjanca Ambrožič, who deals with such matters in the law firm.
The trademark is an essential component of almost all sales networks, and particularly those characterized by the image of the products and/or services sold, like franchising and selective distribution, identified by a brand which is capable of promoting their awareness by consumers. This brings brand owners/suppliers to invest considerable resources in promoting and protecting their trademarks worldwide, by establishing a strict control over the use of their trademarks by third parties, including members of their distribution network. However, in several jurisdictions IP rules (e.g. the principle of exhaustion) and antitrust rules prevent the brand owners from imposing certain restrictions upon the members of their network. The Friday session of the 2025 IDI Annual conference was devoted to: (i) the use of the trademark (morning session) and possible restrictions imposed by the supplier/franchisor (brand owner) upon the members of the system; and (ii) the protection of the trademark (afternoon session) either against possible members of the network (e.g. distributors, who have registered the supplier’s trademark in a given country), or against third parties (free riders). The Saturday workshops addressed a number of new issues together with “old” issues which were still of great importance in distribution networks. Namely, the first workshop dealt with Artificial Intelligence (AI): the use of AI in franchise and distribution systems, the legal issues involved, the relevant risks and liabilities, and the contractual solutions. The second workshop dealt with “new players” in online distribution, such as intermediaries who managed customers’ databases for online promotion, influencers, personal shoppers, and aggregators: to what extent those intermediaries could be regarded as “commercial agents” and granted legal protection (e.g. goodwill indemnity)? Finally, the third workshop dealt with the impact of product recalls in distribution and franchise networks (in case of problems with product safety, consumer protection rules, violation of trademarks, etc.). Such situation can be very critical from both sides (the supplier and the distributor/master/franchisee): what strategies and contractual solutions can be implemented? How to face and manage the recall?
