In the latest edition of "Distributie Vandaag", the bi-monthly magazine of the Belgian Franchise Federation, Carmen Verdonck explains the impact of the revised competition regulations for the distribution of goods and services that went into effect on 1 June 2010.

On February 25 2010 the Supreme Court made the first-ever reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union on the exhaustion of Community plant variety rights under EU Regulation 2100/94.

Kristof Neefs from ALTIUS IP team recently published an article in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice (Oxford Journals) on the use of similar sign in keyword advertising.

On April 6 2010 the legislature approved the replacement for the Trade Practices Act, now named the Act on Market Practices and Consumer Protection.

At the occasion of the second edition of REALTY, ALTIUS and Tiberghien have published a second edition of the "Real Estate Gazette". This newspaper provides updates on the latest real estate and regulatory trends in Belgium.

William Timmermans and Tim Bruyninckx contributed to the Public Procurement Yearbook 2009-2010. This yearbook contains a number of articles written by leading Belgian procurement law experts. In their contribution, William and Tim propose a number of changes to the general terms and conditions for the performance of procurement contracts entered into with public authorities, as established by Royal Decree of 26 September 1996. These general terms and conditions seem no longer adapted to the economic reality and are in some ways even detrimental to a swift performance of the procurement contract. Therefore, the article seeks to open the debate and aims to be a starting point for the required reform of these general terms and conditions.

Carmen Verdock and Jenna Auwerx from ALTIUS Commercial Law Department have contributed to the 2010 edition of 'Vertical Agreements', a volume in the Getting the Deal Through Series that deals with the regulation of distribution practices in 42 jurisdictions worldwide.

Olivier Vrins wrote an article in the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice,  published by Oxford University Press, on the interpretation and consequences of the CJEU’s judgment in the Montex v Diesel case. His contribution aims to look into the post-Montex era, occupied by the national courts of the EU Member States, which, after all, are the watchdogs of Community law, as interpreted by the European Court. Their task, as will appears from his article, is far from easy.

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).