Solutions
EU and Competition
Unleash the full potential of the EU internal market and competition law
Together with Washington DC, Brussels is among the world’s foremost regulatory and antitrust enforcement centres. The Brussels-based EU & Competition department assists clients in need of legal advice on complex, cross-border and vital competition and regulatory matters. Applying EU and competition law, even to purely national cases, may lead to unexpected wins.
EU & national competition law
As an integral part of competition law, companies should carefully monitor opportunities for state aid from national authorities, such as investment or labour subsidies, R&D or sustainability incentives and tax breaks. In this context, our advice and assistance includes the following areas of expertise:
- exclusivity, non-compete and other restrictive contractual clauses;
- pricing practices, including discounts, rebates, temporal and geographic price discrimination, as well as related commercial strategies;
- horizontal and vertical agreements, including distribution, licensing, technology transfers, commercialisation deals and joint ventures;
- structuring of mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures from a competition law perspective;
- merger notifications and calculation of notification thresholds;
- concerns with respect to dominant market positions and the impact on the (execution of) commercial strategies;
- abuse of economic dependence; and
- state aid compliance, subsidies, public undertakings and services of general economic interest.
In relation to the above expertise, we also represent your interests before national and EU courts or competition authorities (including the Belgian Competition Authority and European Commission) and actively assist you in determining pragmatic legal strategies tailored to your business. We closely combine our competition law insights with extensive expertise in EU internal market and regulatory laws (as detailed below) to provide you with one-stop-shop comprehensive solutions.
EU internal market & regulatory law
EU internal market law may serve as a powerful tool as it enjoys supremacy over national law. We enable you to wield this to your advantage to secure market access and ensure the free movement of your goods, services and capital. In advising and representing you in both contentious and non-contentious cases, we strengthen your position vis-à-vis governmental authorities, competitors and other parties. For this purpose, our fields of expertise include:
- access to (digital) markets and EU four freedoms, including the free movement of goods, services and capital;
- foreign direct investments;
- unfair market and commercial practices;
- EU economic sanctions;
- regulated industries;
- territorial restrictions and geo-blocking; and
- EU institutional law and general principles of EU law.
With respect to the above expertise, we also represent you before national and EU courts or regulatory authorities. Our dedicated EU law attorneys work closely with you to set out the optimal strategy and timing of any proceedings in line with your commercial interest and objectives.
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