Partnerblog

One of the measures of the labour deal (Act of 3 October 2022 on various labour provisions) on working time is the introduction of a right to disconnect.

On November 29, 2022, Crowell & Moring’s Yung Shin Van Der Sype gave a webinar covering one of the most important HR privacy issues in Belgium today – the actual impact, four years on, of the GDPR. This blog post summarizes the main points discussed during that webinar.

Does a day, week or month go by without hearing how AI can be a productivity booster for your way-of-working or how AI makes it possible to do more with less effort? In today’s hype-filled world of technology, based on artificial intelligence, the value of AI for contract management does not only extend to sales, procurement, and finance departments, but also the legal department is facing this innovative technology to improve their way-of-working. 

On 10 November 2022, the Act of 3 October 2022 on various labour provisions was published in the Official State Gazette. On our website we will address the most important measures of the Labour Deal. This article concerns the new 7-day notification term for variable work schedules.

The European Long Term Investment Fund (hereinafter “ELTIF”) was created by the EU in 2015 (Regulation 2015/760 dated 29 April 2015). The ELTIFs are designed to create an EU sustainable and flexible investment scheme for long term investments.

On September 20, 2022, Thomas De Meese and Marieke Van Nieuwenborgh presented a webinar on the new competition rules applicable to distribution relationships which entered into force on May 10, 2022. 

On 3 October 2022, the Belgian Federal Government introduced a draft bill containing various tax and financial provisions with the Chamber of Representatives. It includes a wide range of tax measures, mainly impacting procedural aspects. With this bill, the Government seeks to implement the "Second Action Plan for a coordinated anti-fraud policy" launched by the Minister of Finance (cf. our Newsflash of 29 April 2022 (Dutch)).

A new Royal Decree of 11 September 2022 has been adopted to amend the part of the Code on well-being of workers that concerns the reintegration procedure. This Royal Decree has come into force on 1 October 2022 and contains various reforms. In addition, the government submitted a legislative proposal on 14 September which aims to establish a procedure of its own with regard to the termination of the contract for medical force majeure. This procedure was initially included in the reintegration procedure, but now it will be separated.

It’s no secret that legal departments are under ever-increasing pressure to do more with less. Higher workloads and smaller budgets are forcing in-house lawyers to come up with innovative ways to work more efficiently. Many in-house legal teams therefore turn to legal technology solutions to cope with the increased demands.

Also during a secondment to Belgium, attention should be paid to the rules around prohibited lease of personnel. Indeed, a violation of the principle of prohibited lease of personnel can have serious financial consequences. This was once again confirmed by the judgment of the Nivelles labour tribunal of 13 January 2022. These decisions highlight the importance of structuring your secondment in line with Belgian mandatory legislation regarding prohibited lease of personnel, either via a tripartite intra-group secondment agreement or a subcontracting arrangement.

In Belgian employment law, Saturday is in principle considered a working day (in contrast to Sunday and legal holidays) even if the employees are not working on this day. 

On March 1, 2022 , the European Commission published its draft revised Horizontal Block Exemption Regulations (HBERs) and Guidelines for Horizontal Cooperation Agreements (Guidelines ). The stated aim of the revision is to make it easier for companies to cooperate in economically desirable ways and contribute to the digital and green transition. The current HBERs are set to expire on December 31, 2022 and it is therefore to be expected that the final revised HBERs and Guidelines will be adopted before the end of this year.

In a judgment rendered on June 20, 2022, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice (ECJ)  ruled that a judgment rendered by a Court of a Member State in the terms of an arbitral award may in principle serve as a basis for refusing to recognize a subsequent irreconcilable judgment of another Member State. Nevertheless, this rule does not apply where the recognition decision leads to a result which a Court of a Member State could not have achieved directly without violating the fundamental provisions and objectives of the famous Brussels I Regulation. If at this stage this decision seems convoluted, let us detail the stakes of this ruling which will certainly be talked about among scholars and practitioners of law.

The concept of the “place where the employee habitually works” is an essential concept for determining which employment law is to be applied and which jurisdiction is competent. According to a recent case of the Belgian Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation), this concept should not be interpreted in a purely quantitative way, as in the place where the employee works the majority of his time.

The European Whistleblowing Directive (the Directive) provides for the establishment of mandatory secure channels for reporting breaches of EU law and the protection of those who report breaches in a professional context.

Since the European Commission proposed its European strategy for data on 19 February 2020 (followed by the European Parliament’s resolution “European strategy for data”), the Commission has issued the Data Governance Act (DGA) and the Data Act (DA) aiming at creating a single market for data and establishing European leadership in the global data economy.