The rule of Article 96 TPCA excluding concurrence between the action for a cease and desist order under that Act and the specific IP law infringement also applies to trade marks.
This exclusion has given rise to a lot of controversy and hesitations in case law and legal literature. Some have even advocated the abrogation of Article 96 TPCA. The basic problem is that there is no action for a cease and desist order pursuant to the law which implemented the Benelux Trade Mark Law (the Copyright Act provides for an action for a cease and desist order before the president of the court of first instance) although trade mark disputes are quite similar to unfair competition disputes and are very often intertwined with unfair competition in the strict sense, e.g. conduct consisting in taking advantage of the reputation and the creative efforts of a competitor by causing confusion with his trade marks, other signs than trade marks and declarations which are denigrating, misleading and so on. Finally it is argued that the rationale for the anti-concurrence rule (i.e. avoiding to thwart competence rules or to provoke a “negative reflex effect”, i.e. that acts which are legal in the light of the relevant IP law would be qualified as unfair competition) would not be convincing (any more) at least not with respect to trade marks.
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HILTY, Reto M. and HENNING-BODEWIG, Frauke, 2007. Law against Unfair Competition: Towards a New Paradigm in Europe?. Guildford Boulder: Springer London NetLibrary, Inc. [distributor]. MPI studies on intellectual property, competition and tax law, v. 1. ISBN 978-3-540-71882-6.