Moderator Julia Anne Matheson of Hogan Lovells US LLP provides a summary of one of the four workshops held during the 2019 Annual Conference:

The Brands and Marketing Team organized a workshop on Comparative and Sponsored Advertising for this year’s meeting which was well attended and well received.

The programme featured speakers from Russia, China, the UAE, the EU and the U.S who offered an overview of the key principles and enforcement approaches taken in their respective jurisdictions followed by insights into how those principles would be applied to five examples of recent popular and/or controversial comparative advertisements from the U.S.

While panel members highlighted specific issues raised by each advertisement, workshop attendees were electronically polled on whether each advertisement would be actionable or permissible in their home jurisdictions.

Panel members followed up the poll results with individual country-specific analysis of each advertisement supplemented with insights, commentary, and some fun war stories from audience members. The resulting dialogue was engaging and informative in highlighting the very different perceptions of what qualifies as “fair” or “unfair”, humorous or tarnishing, or merely laudatory or impermissibly vague in the various jurisdictions.

The session also highlighted the inherent risks of attempting to interpret statutory guidelines without the benefit of real-world enforcement examples and the input of local experts. In addition, the very divergent views of the panel members on themes and images highlighted the important role cultural influences play in deciding what qualifies as “fair” or “unfair” communications.

Given time limitations, the panel was unable to devote much attention to the issues related to sponsored advertising. Numerous attendees indicated an interest in a follow-up programme devoted to these issues.

The panel members were:

• Julia Yarnykh, Gowlings International Inc, Russia
• Rob Deans, Clyde & Co, UAE
• Yunze Lian, Jadong IP Law Firm, China
• Antony Douglass, Specsavers Optical Group Ltd, Guernsey

Look out for reports from the other Annual Conference workshops soon!