A common situtaion with merge is that the local change and the server or second change are the same. i.e. dropping an unused import. In the situation I have made the same change as was made in source control. However IDEA identifies this as a "conflict". What merge could do is automatically resolve duplicate changes where the local and the source control are the same. BTW: There is an argument that if two people make the same change it is safer to accept the change than one person making a change alone. i.e. not a conflict.