Counsel

Olivia Santantonio

olivia.santantonio@lydian.be

+32 (0)2 787 90 07

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Olivia Santantonio is a counsel in Lydian’s IP practice and our Data Protection practice.

Specialist areas

Olivia has a particular focus on:

IP litigation and brand defence
IP transactions
GDPR compliance
Product regulation

Expertise and experience

Olivia is widely experienced in all fields of Intellectual Property and Data Protection law. Her clients are primarily international, from the luxury, automotive, life sciences, technology, insurance and public sectors.

Olivia Santantonio has specialized in IP with a focus on trademark, copyright, design and trade secrets. Olivia assists her clients in the whole life cycle of their IP protection. She is used to assist on IP strategy, trademark prosecution, contract drafting (including complex transfer technology agreements), enforcement / litigation and due diligence. She is used to advising clients on IP issues and assists them to find the best and fastest way to get out of a dispute. As an IP litigator, she can off course represent them before Belgian Courts and administrative courts.

She frequently advises on data protection issues such as the qualification of the parties as (joint) controller or processor, the rights of the data subjects or the lawful processing of sensitive data. She regularly assists in the audit of undertakings, assessing their level of compliance and helping them in case of data breach or investigation by the Data Protection Authority.

She advices also her clients on product regulatory / compliance matters like for instance before the launch of a new product on the Belgian market but also after in case of labelling issues, safety issues or components issues and possible product recall or investigation by the regulator.

Background

Olivia completed her Law degree at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) in 2006 and received her LL.M in Intellectual Property Law from Katholieke Universiteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium) in 2007. In the same year, she joined Lydian as an Associate and was promoted to Counsel in 2020. She was admitted to the Brussels Bar in 2012.

Publications and speaking engagements

Olivia is the author / co-author of numerous articles on topics such as “Providing trade mark use”, “Registrability of 3D Trademarks”; “Taking unfair advantage of trademarks: parasitism and free riding” and ”The interplay between design and copyright protection for Industrial products”. She co-authored the ICLG Comparative Legal Guide to Data Protection and other guides for Chambers about Data Protection and Privacy, Advertising & Marketing and Product, Liability & Safety. She also prepares client briefings on behalf of the firm and is frequently invited to be a speaker at internal and external client Events.