On 11 January 2010 the College of Competition Law Prosecutors presented a report to the Competition Council in which it confirmed the existence of concerted practices to fix prices by several companies involved in the distribution of chocolate spread and other confectionery. Press reports have suggested that these companies are Ferrero, the Italian chocolate and confectionery manufacturer, and the Belgian supermarket chains Carrefour, Colruyt and Delhaize.
Under the system of plant breeders rights, also known as plant variety rights, the breeder of a new variety can obtain an exclusive right to perform certain acts with respect to material of his protected variety. This exclusive right comes in the form of a certificate which is granted by a body mandated to do so, provided that the variety meets the grant criteria laid down in the law.
La transposition en droit belge, courant 2007, de la Directive européenne 2004/48 sur la mise en œuvre des droits de propriété intellectuelle offrit l'occasion au législateur de revoir et d'harmoniser les procédures relatives au contentieux de la propriété intellectuelle. Deux ans après son entée en vigueur, il est possible de dresser un premier bilan de la réforme. Assurément positif.
On 1 September 2009, the long-anticipated Social Security Agreement between the Kingdom of Belgium and the Republic of India (the “SSA”) entered into force. The SSA was signed in New Delhi on 3 November 2006 and is considered as a landmark agreement as it was the first treaty of its kind to be signed by the Indian authorities. Therefore it is likely to serve as a benchmark for similar agreements between India and other countries.
It goes without saying that this SSA will greatly affect Indian companies who are actively engaged in business in Belgium (or elsewhere in Europe while using Belgium as their platform) or who aspire to do so. Moreover, the SSA will affect Indian individuals who are working or who envisage working in Belgium (and Belgian individuals working or planning to work in India), with regard to some of their social security benefit rights. The purpose of this short memo is to highlight the most relevant provisions of the SSA.
The Acoset judgment of the ECJ dated 15 October 2009 (C-196/08) was related to a dispute about an institutionalised public-private partnership (IPPP). A local authority wanted to grant a concession to a newly-created semi-public company, whose minority shareholder would be a private company selected by an open tender procedure. The minority shareholder would be responsible for the operations of the semi-public company.
The question put to the Court was in essence rather simple: if a local authority wants to grant a concession to a semi-public company, does it have to organise two tender procedures: one for selecting the minority private shareholder in the semi-public company and another to award the concession to the semi-public company? Or, alternatively, is one tender procedure sufficient? The Court chose the latter option, and rightly so.
In the Horizon Pleiades case, the Council of State was confronted with an interesting question: if a public authority organises a procedure to select its partner for a PPP company, which will perform works or services which would normally be covered by the Procurement Directives, does the selection procedure have to comply with the rules laid down in the Procurement Directives or can a “light” selection procedure be used? In its ruling, dated 19 June 2009, the Council of State pierced the veil of a so-called“partnership tender procedure” and held that it must comply with the rules laid down in the Directives.
On 23 April 2009, the ECJ held that Belgium did not properly transpose Procurement Directive 2004/18 into national law (case C-292/07). In fact, Belgium already has new procurement Acts (dating from 15 and 16 June 2006) but they have not entered into force, because the new Royal Decrees implementing these Acts have not been adopted. Therefore, Belgium decided to modify the old Royal Decrees (from 1996). This article will analyse two topics: the negotiated procedure and the procedure for handling abnormally low offers.
In its Sea Judgement of 10 September 2009 (C-573/07), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) further clarifies its “in-house” jurisprudence. More specifically, it goes more deeply into the notion of control. Indeed, following the landmark judgement in the Teckal case, contracting authorities granting a public contract do not have to apply the public procurement rules if the contractor, which is a distinct legal entity, is subject to the same control by the contracting authority as the departments of the contracting authority and if the contractor carries out the essential part of its activities with the controlling local authority or authorities.
The Royal Decree of 8 October 2008 amending the Belgian Companies Code (“BCC”) has amended the rules on financial assistance. The new rules entered into force on 1 January 2009. The Royal Decree implements European Directive 2006/68/EC amending the Second Company Law Directive.
The Belgian rules on financial assistance apply to public limited-liability companies (NV/SA), private limited-liability companies (BVBA/SPRL), partnerships limited by shares (Comm.VA/SCA) and co-operative limited-liability companies (CVBA/SCRL). This contribution only addresses the modifications which affect public limited-liability companies.
ALTIUS' Banking & Finance team contributed to a Jurisdictional Comparison of International Acquisition Finance. The volume provides counsel with a full insight into the law and regulation across numerous jurisdictions. In this article, Johan De Bruycker and his team, untangle the complications of debt funding regimes for the Belgian jurisdiction.
