Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP (LexBlog Belgium)

First Statistics on Belgian FDI Screening The Belgian FDI authority, the Interfederal Screening Commission (“ISC”), has published the first statistics on Belgian FDI screening. The regime, which applies to investments by non-EU investors in entities active in a broad range of sectors and activities in Belgium including aerospace and defense, energy, digital infrastructures, technologies of...

Transactions signed on or after July 1, 2023, involving Belgian entities active in sensitive sectors may now trigger notification under Belgium’s comprehensive Foreign Direct Investment (“FDI”) screening mechanism. Belgium’s recently implemented FDI rules include a mandatory and suspensory screening regime that aims to safeguard public order and national security in Belgium as well as the...

On April 28, 2020, the Belgian data protection authority (the Gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit / Autorité de protection des données, the “Belgian DPA”), handed down a decision imposing a €50,000 fine on Proximus, Belgium’s largest telecommunications operator, on the ground that Proximus had failed to protect its data protection officer (“DPO”) from conflicts of interests in violation of article 38(6

On September 6, 2017, Belgium requested an opinion from the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) on whether the investment protection rules set out in Chapter Eight of the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (“CETA”) conform to EU Treaties. This request stems from the last-minute deal between Belgium and its regional governments on October 27,...

In recent times, the EU and its trade partners have cranked up momentum on the establishment of a multilateral investment court, with the aim of replacing ad hoc arbitration provisions in investor-state dispute settlement (“ISDS”) for the protection of investors. In our previous post, we noted that this has caused some debate in the Canada-EU...