John Filiotis

Practice Areas

Litigation & Dispute Resolution

TMT

Intellectual Property

Employment

Career

John Filiotis is the senior partner at Lambadarios and heads up our Litigation & Dispute Resolution practice. He is a hugely experienced litigator, having spent more than 40 years representing domestic and international clients at all levels of civil and administrative courts, including the Supreme Court, the Conseil d’Etat and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

John has played a key role in numerous high-profile and pioneering litigation and arbitration cases, including cases that have set new precedents in labor law and intellectual property, particularly in relation to content uploaded to internet platforms.

He is recommended by both Chambers Europe and Chambers Global as a band 1 leading lawyer in Dispute Resolution.

Professional Memberships

Athens Bar Association,

Greek Union for Arbitration,

Greek Union of Civil Procedure

Industry Sector Expertise

As the leader and most senior member of our Litigation & Dispute Resolution team, John has played a critical role in many high-profile and influential cases. He has represented clients in a range of industry sectors at every level of court in Greece, including multiple cases each year at the Supreme Court.

John has played a leading role in shaping legal precedent in Greece, most recently representing Goodyear Tires and Athens Paper Mill in labor law cases relating to the application of EU law and collective redundancies following the companies’ closure of factories in Greece.

He also operates at the leading edge of evolving internet law and has successfully represented the leading US search engine in cases against artists, politicians and businessmen over the removal of allegedly defamatory content, IP-owned content and personal data from the internet. He has also represented YouTube in a first-of-its-kind case over liability for IP content uploaded by users, in which a collecting society turned against both the infringer and the platform. The Court rejected the claim in its entirety against the platform.

He led the critical hearing in a free speech case brought by Greek politician Theodore Katsanevas against the Greek Wikipedia user and administrator, Diu. The Court of First Instance of Athens denied the preliminary injunction requested by Mr. Katsanevas, which would have required Diu, along with co-defendant Greek Free / Open Source Software Society (“ELLAK”), to provisionally remove statements from the Greek language Wikipedia article about Mr. Katsanevas.

John has wide-ranging experience of representing clients in the Conseil D’ Etat in cases relating to challenges by the State or corporations against tender procedures and public procurement rules.