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• EU: EDPB Publishes Draft Guidelines on Anonymisation

  On 7 July 2026, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) adopted its draft Guidelines 02/2026 on Anonymisation for public consultation. The Guidelines provide long-awaited clarification on when data can truly be considered anonymous under the GDPR, updating the previous Article 29 Working Party’s 2014 Opinion on anonymisation to reflect significant legal, and technological developments, including...

• SRB Operational Guidance for banks on Business Reorganisation Plan Analysis Reports

  On 30 July 2026, the Single Resolution Board (SRB) published Operational Guidance for banks on Business Reorganisation Plan Analysis Reports alongside a complementary quantitative template. The document sets out operational guidance for institutions to consider when implementing the expectations regarding business reorganisation plan analysis reports and when producing business reorganisation plans. Depending on the specific...

• EU: CER Directive enters a new phase as “critical entity” designation deadline arrives

  Today, 17 July 2026, marks an important milestone under the EU’s Critical Entities Resilience Directive (CER), as Member States are required to identify and designate the entities considered “critical” for the provision of essential services. Understanding the CER Directive The CER forms part of the EU’s broader effort to strengthen the resilience of critical infrastructure...

• Making It Easier For Injured People To Prove Liability And Get Full Compensation: More On The New European Union Product Liability Directive

  If you are a regular blog reader, you may have seen some of our prior posts about the new Product Liability Directive adopted by the European Union and going into force this December.   Two weeks ago, we had the pleasure of Co-Chairing the inaugural forum on Life Sciences Product Liability Europe in Brussels, and...

• European Commission publishes voluntary Code of Practice on labelling AI-generated content

  The European Commission has published the final Code of Practice on marking and labelling AI-generated content, a voluntary framework to help providers and deployers of generative AI systems meet the AI Act transparency obligations that apply from 2 August 2026. From that date, deepfakes and AI-generated or manipulated text on matters of public interest must...

• ECON issues draft reports on MISP legislative proposals

  On 11 June 2026, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) published the following draft reports on the European Commission’s legislative proposals relating to the market integration and supervision package (MISP): Each draft report contains draft European Parliament legislative resolutions setting out suggested amendments to the legislative proposals, with the justifications for...

• EU AI Act Update: The European Commission Publishes Draft Guidelines on HRAIs

  On 19 May 2026, the European Commission published its long-awaited draft, non-binding guidelines on the classification of high-risk AI systems (“HRAIs”) under the EU AI Act (the “Guidelines”). Across three documents—covering general principles, high-risk classification in the context of regulated products (Annex I), and high-risk use cases (Annex III)—the Commission sets out its approach to...

• EU Biotech Act II: One Week Remaining to Shape the Commission’s Approach

  The European Commission’s Call for Evidence on the upcoming Biotech Act II is open until 10 June 2026, with one week remaining for companies to provide input.  Companies should consider engaging now to help shape the outcome. The initiative is expected to have a broad impact across sectors including chemicals, agriculture, agri-biotech, food and feed,...

• EU Platform response to Commission consultation on the Environmental and Climate Delegated Acts

  On 27 May 2026, the EU Platform on Sustainable Finance (EU Platform) published its response to the European Commission’s consultation on the Environmental and Climate Delegated Acts. In addition to its main briefing the EU Platform has published two annexes, one for each Delegated Act, setting out the specific recommendations for both substantial contribution and...

• ECJ ruling on data subject access requests: Some welcome relief for European employers, or not quite yet? (Part II)

  By: Marga Caproni, Chelsea Gunning, Lisa Shannon, Annette Demmel, Marmare Barekati, Malgorzata Grzelak, Floriane Essling and Marion Cavalier Following on from our blog earlier in the week concerning the ECJ’s recent decision on data subject access requests (DSARs), we take a brief look at different European countries and the role that DSARs have come to...

Featured documents

• Agreement Reached in Belgium on Google Street View Privacy Concerns

  2010 and 2011 witnessed Google’s rollout of Street View, the search company’s mobile panoramic mapping service, in a number of European countries — but not without challenges to the Internet giant, which has had to enter into a variety of agreements with local European data protection regulators.  O...

• Leading European privacy law conference points to key themes, suggests strategic directions

  A few weeks ago, more than 1,000 academics, legal practitioners and government officials convened for one of Europe’s premier privacy law events: the Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) conference in Brussels, Belgium. Europeans dominated this crowd but a significant number of...

• Employee Who Stole the Cookie Recipe From the Cookie Jar Fined €1 (Yes, that’s one single Euro)

  The Criminal Court of Mechelen (Belgium) ruled in favor of Bofin Biscuits against a former production assistant accused of having stolen the assistant director of the cookie baker’s laptop. The laptop allegedly contained the secret recipes of all the cookies produced by Bofin Biscuits. This case is ...

• The EU should follow the U.S. lead on whistleblowers — protect insiders by allowing them to report crimes directly to outside agencies

  Whistleblowers in the European Union will be at risk of retaliation unless they can report crimes to regulators and law enforcement without first reporting them internally. That is the message from Stephen M. Kohn in an article published Wednesday on the website of Whistleblowerprotection.eu. Kohn, ...

• COVID-19 – Belgian government takes measures for those who can and can’t work

  Credit where credit is due: even though we still don’t have a new Belgian government, our interim government has been extremely efficient and pragmatic in introducing measures to combat the impact of the COVID-19 crisis. State-aided temporary unemployment where work becomes difficult or impossible...

• Norovirus outbreak reported at Belgian school; raw vegetables blamed

  More than 150 students and staff at a school in Belgium fell ill during an outbreak of norovirus earlier this month, according to information recently released. The Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) reported the food poisoning at the Atheneum Pegasus school in the city of...

• EU countries hit out at ethylene oxide recall measures

  Several European countries have called measures adopted to deal with ethylene oxide in a food additive “disproportionate.” In July, it was agreed all products containing the additive locust bean gum (E410) that is contaminated with ethylene oxide need to be withdrawn or recalled to protect the...

• Barry Callebaut to restart Salmonella-hit plant

  Barry Callebaut is to resume production at its factory in Belgium that was involved in a Salmonella contamination incident beginning next month. Cleaning of the chocolate lines affected by the Salmonella-positive lecithin in the plant in Wieze, is progressing well, said the company. The first...

• The Role of Controlling Shareholders Is Missing from the Debate over Short-Termism

  The debate over short-term thinking at corporations has so far focused largely on companies in the U.S. and the UK. The fact that controlling shareholders are less common in those countries than in many others may explain why the extensive literature on short-termism has often ignored the role of...

• Belgian control finds labeling violations

  The Belgian food agency has found problems with food labels in more than half of inspections during an operation across the country. The Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) in Belgium reported that 53 percent of the controls showed that one or more product labels did not meet...