Berlin Talks: Private International Law

New series of events on private international law: interdisciplinary, practical, discursive - for research, practice and networking.

Berlin Talks: Private International Law - under this motto we want to activate and network the Berlin IPR community with this new series of events - across disciplines, institutions and levels of experience. The focus is on private international law in a broadly understood sense - including international procedural law, international arbitration and international uniform law.

The second edition of Berlin Talks: Private International Law will take place on

Thursday, November 13th, at 6:15 p.m.

at the Free University of Berlin (Conference Room III, Henry Ford Building, Garystraße 35, 14195 Berlin).

This time, Madeleine Petersen Weiner will speak about SLAPPs - the IPR problem of cross-border intimidation lawsuits. Recently, lawsuits have been increasing, particularly against journalists, activists and NGOs with the aim of to intimidate and restrict their work. These so-called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) often have a cross-border dimension. The current EU IPR regime offers a special breeding ground for plaintiffs with an abusive intention to intimidate, particularly due to the mosaic theory advocated by the ECJ. To combat these lawsuits, the EU has issued an anti-SLAPP directive, which is intended to strengthen the protection of public participation, but does not adequately address the IPR problem. The lecture highlights these challenges and shows potential solutions.

Save the date: Berlin Talks: Private International Law continues on January 29th and February 26th, 2026!

With kind regards

Andreas Engel, University Heidelberg
Markus Lieberknecht, University of Osnabrück
Bettina Rentsch, Free University of Berlin
Giesela Rühl, Humboldt University of Berlin
Sophia Schwemmer, University of Heidelberg