The Emulation department assists companies and public authorities in the application of competition law and market access regulations.
Our department represents you in the management of litigation files and provides strategic advice in the reading of legal and regulatory texts.
Competition law: distribution contracts, strategic behavior and unfair competition
At the advisory stage, we assist you in the setting up of your distribution network, or in the course of your relations with your suppliers or distributors.
At the litigation stage, we represent companies before the Courts, the European Commission and the Belgian Competition Authority.
More specifically, we assist you in the following areas:
- Distribution contracts:
- Drafting of contracts:
- commercial concession agreement;
- franchise agreement;
- commercial agency contract;
- intellectual property license agreement.
- Particular points of attention:
- contract profitability and pre-contractual information;
- consumer law;
- exclusive or selective distribution;
- non-competition clauses and exclusivity clauses.
- Drafting of contracts:
- Unilateral practices:
- abuse of dominant position (refusal to supply, predatory pricing, twinning …);
- abuse of economic dependence (abrupt termination of relations, delisting, etc.).
- Unfair competition and fair market practices:
- denigration;
- counterfeiting, slavish copying and parasitism;
- misappropriation of customers and poaching of personnel;
- theft of business secrets.
- Civil antitrust litigation:
- actions for injunctions;
- summary proceedings and provisional measures;
- claims for damages.
- Cartels:
- assistance during searches by the competition authority;
- “pleading guilty”: leniency applications and settlements.
- Competition audits and compliance programs
State aids
We assist public authorities (Federal State, Regions, Communities, municipalities, public development agencies, etc.) in the implementation of their economic stimulus and investment policies.
We support companies in accessing subsidies and the non-discriminatory distribution of public funds.
Specifically, we assist you in the following areas:
- State aids:
- Audit of the compliance of Belgian legislation and regulations with European state aid law;
- Notification procedure and assistance before the European Commission;
- Advice on the implementation of Services of General Economic Interest (“SGEI” – or public service);
- Recourse against the discriminatory granting of subsidies to a competitor.
- Public procurement:
- Public procurement procedure (advice in the drafting of procurement decisions);
- Appeals to the State Council against a decision to award a contract to a competitor.
- State aids:
- Obtaining grants;
- Jurisdictional proceedings before the Council of State or the courts and tribunals in order to obtain the granting of subsidies that have been unjustly refused or discriminated against.
Regulation
The department assists companies wishing to enter and develop a market whose access is administratively limited:
- Energy / Telecoms / Transport (relations with the regulatory authority, tariff practices, public service obligations, etc.);
- Food industry (conformity, labeling and circulation of products in the single market);
In a less traditional way, we also have expertise in market access for regulated professions:
- lobbying public authorities and defending the interests of professional business associations;
- maintaining or recovering approvals giving access to regulated professions (e.g. real estate agents (IPI), medical professions, accountants, security agents, platforms (e.g. cab licenses, etc.);
- contesting attempts to extend the monopoly of regulated professions;
- reinstatement procedure within sports federations (appeals against decisions to downgrade or exclude players or clubs);
- appeals against the exclusion of access to an industrial norm (standard).