LexBlog (LexBlog Belgium)

AI vendor readiness comes to mid-market M&A. Ideals and Jurimesh integrate to deliver 1,000+ legal and commercial risk checks on data rooms in 20 minutes. Vendor readiness is standard at the top of the market. Ideals and Jurimesh bring it to the rest. ● Buyers are getting sharper. The average M&A deal now spends 264...

On 11 May 2026, the Single Resolution Board (SRB) issued a public consultation on a consolidated version of its operational guidance for banks on liquidity and funding in resolution and its annexes. The SRB operational guidance specifies the resolvability expectations related to banks’ liquidity and funding arrangements. It provides operational guidance to banks on how...

On April 15, 2026, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) adopted guidelines on the processing of personal data for scientific research purposes.[1] The guidelines aim to clarify GDPR compliance requirements for scientific research involving personal data. The concepts addressed by the EDPB are of particular relevance to companies active in life sciences, artificial intelligence (AI),...

On 21 April 2026, the European Commission (Commission) published a draft Delegated Regulation amending the Capital Requirements Regulation as regards temporary targeted operational relief measures and targeted multipliers for the calculation of an institutions’ own funds requirements for market risk. The draft delegated act follows a call for evidence that the Commission issued and introduces...

On 16 April 2026, the Single Resolution Board issued its response to the European Commission’s targeted consultation on EU banking sector competitiveness.

DG COMP has a new Director-General – Anthony Whelan, a long-serving European Commission official who has been at the heart of EU regulation and competition law for over 30 years. Currently DG COMP’s Deputy Director-General for State aid, he has held a wide range of roles over his career: he has worked in the Commission...

Editor’s Note: Four compliance deadlines converging in a 31-day window this spring will test the resilience of information governance frameworks across sectors. The EU’s NIS2 Directive hits its first hard enforcement checkpoint in Belgium on April 18, followed four days later by the FTC’s overhauled COPPA Rule reaching full compliance. In early May, the Advisory...

Editor’s Note: Brussels now faces the kind of cyber reckoning it has spent years warning others about. In this article, we examine the reported European Commission breach tied to ShinyHunters and why the incident matters well beyond the immediate headlines. From compromised cloud infrastructure and exposed DKIM signing keys to the downstream risks of phishing,...

If you do use the blog for research or database purposes, citation would be appreciated, to the blog as a whole and /or to specific blog posts. Many have suggested I should turn the blog into a paid for, subscription service however I have resisted doing so. Proper reference to how the blog is useful...

Victor David (KU Leuven) has published the book EU Fundamental Rights as a Special Source for the European Court of Human Rights. Doing the opposite of many studies in this field, it looks at the influence of EU fundamental rights law on the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. This is the abstract:...

Last week, in the wake of International Women’s Day, the Flemish government approved a – very partial – implementation of the Pay Transparency Directive. The bulk of the transposition work is still to be done by the federal government and the social partners in the National Labour Council, and on these fronts, things are still...

 While the announced Digital Fairness Act proposal remains so far at the announcement stage, the last few months have brought to light the DSA’s potential – if yet to be tested – to contribute to consumer protection beyond content moderation practices. In this sense, it particularly interesting that this month the European Commission has announced...

 [We have the following announcement.  DRE.  H/t: DS] The Twining-Llewellyn Fund is a unique collection of several hundred documents and works collected by William Twining (1934-2025) over the course of his career. The collection is housed at the Perelman Centre in Brussels. A significant portion of these documents illuminate the life and work of Karl N....

On 15 January 2026, the Belgian High Court delivered a judgment in proceedings initiated by the Belgian Supervisory Authority, in which it challenged the scope of judicial review exercised by the Market Court over its enforcement decisions. The authority was unsuccessful on both grounds of appeal. By way of background, the Supervisory Authority had adopted...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being integrated into mergers and acquisitions (M&A), supporting negotiations, determining the value of the target, drafting relevant contracts – and, most important, helping perform due diligence. Yet, its role in this context raises questions about liability, fiduciary duties, and the validity of corporate transactions. In a new paper, we offer...

The adoption of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (the AI Act) reshapes the liability framework associated with artificial intelligence in the EU. Going forward, it will no longer be sufficient to invoke “best practices” or “ethical use”: it will be essential to demonstrate, through traceability and evidence, that the system has been designed, placed on the market,...

On 15 January 2026, the Belgian High Court delivered a judgment in proceedings initiated by the Belgian Supervisory Authority, in which it challenged the scope of judicial review exercised by the Market Court over its enforcement decisions. The authority was unsuccessful on both grounds of appeal. By way of background, the Supervisory Authority had adopted...

Pharma & KatReaders interested in pharma-related issues will be pleased to learn that the Annual Conference on EU Law in the Pharmaceutical Sector will take place in Brussels and online on 12-13 March 2026.The IPKat is also happy to report that it has negotiated a 20% discount in the registration fee with the organizers of...

On 3 February 2026, the Single Resolution Board (SRB) issued a consultation on the: Next steps The SRB will meet with the banking industry and other relevant stakeholders on 3 March 2026 to address any questions before the consultation ends. The deadline for comments on the consultation is 30 March 2026.

Warn N. Lekfuangfu (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid; CEP, London School of Economics; University College London – CReAM – Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration), Javier Olivera (National Bank of Belgium) and Philippe Van Kerm (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research) recently published, Bequest Division: The Roles of Parental Motives and Children’s Gender Composition, 2026....

In previous blogs, we have mentioned how Belgium is high up in the ranks of countries with employees on long-term absence, and how our new(ish) government wants to tackle this national disease on different fronts. The first chapter of this ambitious plan came into force on 1 January 2026. We have summarised the changes below,...

Ghent, Belgium, 29 December 2025. Alice, an AI platform built by lawyers for lawyers and legal teams, has raised €1 million in pre-seed funding to rethink legal casework from end to end. The round was led by NewSchool and Seeder Fund, with participation from a group of experienced Belgian angel investors. When unchecked AI meets...

Belgium filed Tuesday a declaration of intervention to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the case against Israel in relation to the situation in the Gaza Strip. In the declaration, Belgium expressed its understanding of the term “genocidal intent” contained in the Genocide Convention. Citing a previous ICJ provisional measure order in the case...

We sighed a collective sigh of relief when the Belgian government finally reached the budget agreement last week.  The negotiations had been really difficult, which is not surprising considering the challenges the government faces: €8 billion had to be found somewhere to keep Belgium’s debt at an acceptable level (acceptable as in not driving us...

While the new government announced fairly drastic measures on the employment front when it was formed towards the end of January 2025, most of these changes have yet to take place. There are however a couple of developments to report: Belgium has long applied an early retirement regime known as a ‘bridge pension‘ or, following...

An E. coli outbreak in Belgium with more than 70 cases and nine deaths has been linked to ground beef. The Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) said no samples of the affected batch of meat were available, so the source cannot be confirmed with absolute certainty. Food consumption in the...

Almost 50 confirmed E. coli infections and several deaths have been reported in eight nursing homes in a region of Belgium. In Flanders, it has been confirmed that 48 patients and seven deaths were caused by the same strain of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) O157. Infections in the eight nursing homes were first reported...

About 20 residents of six nursing homes in Belgium have fallen ill after being infected with E. coli. Local media reported five people had died but it was not certain what role E. coli played in their deaths. The Flemish Department of Health (Departement Zorg), Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC),...

Belgium has recorded an increase in outbreaks and illnesses in 2024 compared to the year before. In 2024, 777 outbreaks were notified: 4,248 people were affected and 205 were hospitalized. There were six deaths. Figures were reported in the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain’s (FASFC) annual report. The number of notifications...

Neuhaus Chocolates NV of Vlezenbeek, Belgium, has initiated a recall for Belgian Chocolate Moments Smurfs ‘Popping Milk Chocolates with Cookies, because they contains undeclared wheat.  People who have an allergy or severe sensitivity to wheat (gluten) run the risk of serious or life-threatening allergic reaction if they consume these products. The Belgian Chocolate Moments Smurf’s...