Just over a year after the entry into force of the Belgian Cooperation Agreement of 30 November 2022 establishing a foreign direct investment screening mechanism[1] , we see that in practice, too little attention is (still) being paid to the broad scope of those so-called Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) regulations. Under those regulations, certain transactions must be notified prior to their realisation. Involved parties or advisers are sometimes unaware of this and erroneously assume that the regulations in question only apply to “larger” transactions or those involving non-EU companies. However, this is without taking into account the broadly formulated scope…
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A director is expected to be “loyal” to the company in which he exercises his mandate. The duty of loyalty of directors[1] emanates from the general ‘good faith’ principle in contract law, which states that agreements must be executed in good faith. It is accepted that this loyalty implies a non-competition obligation, which means that the director is not allowed to exercise activities during the term of his mandate that compete with the company’s (actual) business activities. He may not, for instance, set up a competing company, exercise a mandate or hold an operational position in a competing company, ……
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The need for legal alternatives to physical attendance at general meetings of companies or (international) non-profit organizations (“(I)VZW”), became more relevant than ever the past year. The Company’s Code, respectively the CCA, already included an array of options to address this problem even before it became an issue within the context of the Covid-19 crisis, some of these options only applicable to companies. The Law of 20 December 2020 (Belgian Official Gazette of 24 December 2020) on various temporary and structural provisions on justice in the context of the fight against the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19, introduces a certain…
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As set out in a former blog article (“Non-competition clause in acquisition agreements: a necessity?” – Matthias Jans, 14 April 2016 – see link), the buyer of shares who wants to prevent that the seller conducts competing activities after the transfer, must explicitly include a non-competition clause in the share purchase agreement. Pursuant to the French d’Allarde Decree of 1791, the freedom of trade and industry prevails. This principle is now included in Book II of the Code of Economic law, Title 3 (Freedom of enterprise). As a non-competition clause restricts this freedom, the parties have to consider a certain…
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In our blog post of 21 December 2018, updated by our blog post of 2 April 2019, we informed you about the legally required transparency as to the ultimate beneficial owners of enterprises, by means of registration in the so-called UBO-register. According to the royal Decree of 30 July 2018, the information concerning the ultimate beneficial owners of the enterprise had to be registered for the first time at the latest on 30 November 2018. The FPS Finance however allowed to postpone the registration until 30 September 2019. Meanwhile, the FPS Finance announced a tolerance period until 31 December 2019….
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Update: additional postponement of the mandatory transparency about the ultimate beneficial owner(s)
In our blog post of 21 December 2018 we informed you about the new legally required transparency as to the ultimate beneficial owners of enterprises, by means of registration in the so-called UBO-register. According to the royal Decree of 30 July 2018, the information concerning the ultimate beneficial owners of the entreprise had to be registered for the first time at the latest on 30 November 2018. After a first postponement of the deadline, until 31 March 2019, the FPS Finance announced that entreprises are allowed to postpone the registration until 30 September 2019. This blog post has been…
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The new legally required transparency as to the ultimate beneficial owners of an enterprise is an important additional action point in the M&A practice after completion of an acquisition (“post-closing action”). What? Belgian Companies, (international) non-profit organisations, foundations, trusts and legal entities that are comparable to trusts, have the following new obligations under the Belgian “Law of 18 September 2017 on the prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing and on the restriction of the use of cash”: The Law adds to the Belgian Companies Code (Articles 14/1 and 14/2) and to the Belgian NPO and Foundations Law[1] (Articles 58/11…
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