Squire Patton Boggs (LexBlog Belgium)

In a previous blog, we announced our new federal government’s ambitious plans regarding the labour market, employment law and pensions. Just before heading off on a sunny break, the government has now come to an agreement on a first set of measures, which journalists – clearly also in desperate need of a break – have...

In December 2024, the new Private Investigations Act came into force. The Act replaced the Private Detectives Act of 1991 and was long overdue, considering how much has changed in the world of private investigations. The 1991 law focused on detectives as sole practitioners, think Columbo or Magnum P.I., a world of uncertain ethics, periodic...

Well, a lot in fact! A number of new provisions are taking effect at the start of the new year and we have tried to summarise them for you in one little blog post. Our New Year’s gift to you! 1. Extended information obligations in the event of a transfer of an undertaking As from...

In Belgian law, there are certain periods of employment during which there are greater than usual restrictions on an employer’s ability to dismiss an employee. These include periods of maternity, parental and other types of care leave. Parting company with employees during any period when they are protected against dismissal can become a costly affair,...

Faced with the inconvenient truth that we’ll all need to work longer to keep state pensions affordable, the Belgian government is focusing more intensely on employee training to ensure that the country’s workforce remains up-to-date and equipped with employable professional skill sets throughout their career. The Belgian Labour Deal that was voted through in 2022...

If you terminate an employee in Belgium you will often need to pay a severance indemnity.  This is calculated in part by reference to the employee’s pay for his notice period.  It is calculated on the “full salary”, including not just base salary, 13th month and vacation pay, but also all other benefits enjoyed by...

In this last episode of our mini-series on long-term absence, we will zoom in on probably the most common current ground for long-term absence in Belgium, which is burn-out. Burn-out was in the Belgian press again recently because of a decision in the Antwerp Employment Court that it is discriminatory for a health care insurer...

The Belgian Parliament is currently discussing a draft Bill proposed by Federal Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke which aims to reverse the growing trend of long-term sickness. About half a million employees have been off sick for more than a year, according to figures from the National Institute for Sickness and Disability Insurance. That’s two-thirds more...

While some are already hanging up the Christmas decorations and squeezing back into their Christmas jumpers, the Belgian legislator has picked the festive season to introduce a number of new measures relating to well-being in the workplace. We will discuss these measures in a series of blogs. The first measure holds that the appointment of...

When I tell people I am an Employment lawyer, it is not uncommon for them to assume out loud my days must be filled swinging metaphorical axes and terminating employees on all sides. While I always reassure them that that is not quite the case, today’s blog will not help this misconception disappear. The message...

The statistics Some uplifting news last week from Statbel, the Belgian Agency for Statistics. In 2021, there was no longer a pay gap for young women in Belgium. But as their age goes up, so opens up the pay gap with male colleagues. On average across all ages, women in Belgium earned 5% less per...

In the first part of our mini blog series we discussed the training plan you are required to introduce for your employees in Belgium before 31 March. In this second blog, we will zoom in on the biking allowance which was introduced recently. Although we are not quite at the level of the Dutch (the...

As it turns out, lots. Too much for one blog, in fact, so welcome to a short miniseries on the new developments of most relevance to you as employer. In recent months, the Belgian legislature has clearly come out of its post pandemic slump and a number of new measures have been introduced, some of...

The IAPP has gathered predictions from privacy professionals in 56 nations across six continents in their publication 2023 Global Legislative Predictions. Charles Helleputte and Diletta De Cicco provide their predictions for Belgium. 2022 was a bumpy year for data protection in Belgium, at least when looking at its primary enforcer, the Belgian Data Protection Authority....

Roughly a year late, but here we are then: Belgium has finally transposed the Whistleblowers Directive into national law. The Act of 28 November 2022 on the protection of reporters of breaches of Union or national law discovered within a legal entity in the private sector sets out the rules for companies in the private...

If I were to rank the employment law questions I receive by popularity, questions around long-term absence, absenteeism and generally how to deal with work incapacity would be right up there, a definite podium finish. The tension between the legitimate frustrations of employers and the no-fault nature of the employees’ absence seems eternal. To give...

If I were to rank the employment law questions I receive by popularity, questions around long-term absence, absenteeism and generally how to deal with work incapacity would be right up there, a definite podium finish. The tension between the legitimate frustrations of employers and the no-fault nature of the employees’ absence seems eternal. To give...

The human suffering in Ukraine is immense and leaves all of us aghast. Prosaic as it may sound by comparison, however, the economic effect of the Russia/Ukraine conflict is also trickling down into Belgium and the rest of the world, as prices for utilities and food are on the rise almost everywhere. Soon enough, Belgian...

After the federal majority parties failed to conclude an agreement on Friday on a series of labour market reforms, they finally broke the deadlock overnight on Monday this week. In an early fail on the work:life balance front, the new measures were unveiled at a presumably sparsely-attended press conference at 2.30am. Bleary-eyed Ministers praised the...

Against the background of industrial unrest in other sectors, the social partners of Joint Committee 200 –the Committee representing the largest number of employees in the country, more than 480.000 in total – have quietly come to an agreement on employment and working conditions. The most important provisions of the agreement are summarized within this...

In the wave of sunny optimism following the roll-out of our vaccination programme this spring-summer, few people in Belgium had anticipated that the Covid situation would worsen again, or do so as quickly as it has. And yet the numbers of infections and patients in intensive care are now at an all-time high. New stricter...

In this fifth and final episode of our Working from Home series, we will dive into the less explored topic of working time for teleworkers. When it comes to working time, teleworkers are a bit of a special breed. Teleworkers are excluded from the majority of the provisions of the Labour Act, in particular the...

The pandemic has given an enormous boost to working from home, in particular (to state the obvious) when it was mandatory. Where roles permitted it, even those employers and employees most vigorously opposed to it simply had no choice but to accept it. When quizzed about the reasons why they oppose WFH, most employers’ main...

I will start this third part of our Working from Home series with a confession: I worked the first couple of weeks of lockdown from a small table dragged in from our balcony. Not because I don’t have a fully equipped and ergonomically approved home office, because I do. I just didn’t like the vibe...

In this second part of our “Working from home” series, we look at the element that has so far attracted by far the most questions, which is around who pays the costs of working from home. It should come as no surprise that this topic has generated so many queries. Belgium has introduced a number...

At the risk of kicking in an open door, working from home and the return to the office has become this summer’s hot topic. In Belgium the pandemic has meant that working from home where you could was mandatory until the end of June. Employees are now gradually returning to the workplace but surveys show...

As we saw the covid graphs get steeper each day of last week, it is no real surprise that the Belgian government has now announced a new “Easter lockdown” for the next four weeks. Schools will close as of this Friday for an extended Easter break, that increasingly imperative haircut will have to wait another...

In order to ensure that as many people as possible are vaccinated, the trade unions and the employers’ organisations in the National Labour Council have agreed that employees will be allowed to take the necessary time off to be vaccinated. If enough vaccines are available, at-risk patients will be vaccinated from April onwards and the...

We already had a legal framework for recurrent home working and a separate one for “occasional” home working, but up until now there was no clear guidance on the mandatory home working imposed by the Belgian government as a measure to combat the pandemic. Clarity at last, however, as the National Labour Council voted through...

We already had a legal framework for recurrent home working and a separate one for “occasional” home working, but up until now there was no clear guidance on the mandatory home working imposed by the Belgian government as a measure to combat the pandemic. Clarity at last, however, as the National Labour Council voted through...