There have been quite a number of recent developments in European SPC cases relating to combination products. Courts seem to have difficulties in dealing with this issue and various tests regarding validity and infringement have been developed by different national courts. In EPLAW's Patent Blog, Philippe de Jong focuses on these validity issues and infringement issues.
On March 18 2010 the Senate approved the new Corporate Governance Act, which had already been approved by the Chamber of Deputies. The new act will be published in the Official Gazette shortly. New corporate governance rules apply to publicly quoted companies and some state-owned companies, such as the Belgian Post and Belgium's national railway company. The act aims to strengthen the corporate governance of these companies, especially in terms of remuneration controls. It also contains new rules on individuals who are banned from acting as company directors in the banking and finance sector (eg, following bankruptcy or a criminal conviction).
The Belgian Supreme Court has ruled that circumstances which were not reasonably foreseeable at the time of the conclusion of an agreement and which increase the burden of the agreement disproportionately, can, in certain circumstances, be considered as “an impediment” in the sense of Article 79 of the United Nations Convention on Contracs for the International Sale of Goods, signed in Vienna on 11 April 1980 (the “CISG”).
On 18 March 2010, the Senate approved the new Corporate Governance Act, which had already been approved by the Chamber of Deputies. The new Act will be published in the Belgian State Gazette soon.
The new corporate governance rules apply to publicly-quoted companies and some state-owned companies such as the Belgian Post and the Belgian Railways. The Act should strengthen the corporate governance of these companies, especially in terms of remuneration controls. The Act also contains some new rules on individuals who are banned from acting as a company Director in the banking and finance sector (e.g. following bankruptcy or a criminal conviction).
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.
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