Belgian transposition of the PSDII rules of conduct
The transposition of the second Payment Services Directive (the “PSDII”) should have been completed on 13 January 2018. With a delay of a few months, a Belgian draft law implementing the PSDII rules of conduct into the Economic Law Code (the “Rules of Conduct (draft) Law”) has finally been released and is likely to be […]
A step forward for the draft new Companies and Associations Code
On 25 May 2018, the Council of Ministers approved the draft new Companies and Associations Code which aims at modernising the regime applicable to companies and associations. The draft Code will now be submitted to the Federal Parliament for discussion and vote. We expect parliamentary approval in the autumn of this year. One of the […]
2nd e-Money Directive evaluation: too little and too late?
The 2nd E-money Directive’s ambitions The first e-money directive 200/46/EC was not as successful as initially expected. Some of its provisions limited the development of the European e-money market, notably due to certain over-demanding prudential requirements and uncertainties about its scope of application. The second e-money directive 2009/110/EC of 16 September 2009 (“2EMD”) was meant […]
Our review of the EU Commission draft FinTech Action Plan
The EU should work on “a more future-oriented regulatory framework embracing digitalisation, with the aim of creating an environment where innovative FinTech products and solutions can be rapidly rolled out across the EU to benefit from the scale economies of the Single Market” (EU Commission draft FinTech Action Plan) And to attain this ambitious objective, […]
ICOs in Belgium and Europe: a legal perspective
What’s in a name? The term ICO stands for ‘Initial Coin Offering’, a rather obvious reference to IPOs (‘Initial Public Offering’). Like IPOs, ICOs can be described as a means of raising public funds. And quite a good one. Although numbers vary from one analyst to another, in 2017 alone, approximately USD 3 billion would […]
A drug prescription assistance software can be a medical device
In its judgment dated 7 December 2017 (case C-329/16), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) considered that software, of which at least one of the functions makes it possible to use patient-specific data for the purposes, inter alia, of detecting contraindications, drug interactions and excessive doses, is, in respect of that function, […]
The Belgian corporate income tax reform
As announced since several months, the new Belgian corporate income tax reform was recently enacted by the law of 25 December 2017 (hereafter: “Law”), as published in the Belgian State Gazette of 27 December 2017. Hereunder you will find a summary of some of the major highlights of this reform. Decrease of the nominal corporate income […]
Discover our Digital Finance Team – Finalist of ‘Prix de l’Innovation’
Discover – or rediscover – our Digital Finance team in this short video that we presented as a finalist of « Prix de l’Innovation » organised by Incubateur Avocats.be. We warmly thank our client Xavier Lahoureux (mozzeno) for his contribution! For more information, visit our webpage dedicated to the Digital Finance team
La finance digitale #Robotisation
The Digital Finance team is happy to share an article on the legal aspects of the robotization of finance, co-authored by Catherine Houssa, Philippe De Prez and Lucien Standaert. The article was published by the Research Centre in Information, Law and Society (Centre de Recherches en Information, Droit et Société – CRIDS) of the University of Namur. […]
MIFID II – The final countdown has started until 3 January 2018
On 9 November 2017, the Chamber of Representatives approved the draft law implementing MiFID II into Belgian law. The draft law is now available on the Chamber’s website. For more information on this major subject, please do not hesitate to contact our team.
Will insurance professionnals avoid MiFID II? Yes and no
Introduction A few years ago and in a rather controversial manner, the Belgian government decided to extend the scope of MiFID I rules of conduct to the insurance sector via two royal decrees of 21 February 2014: the royal decree on the modalities of application to the insurance sector of Articles 27 to 28bis of […]
Paul Alain Foriers participates in the reform of the Belgian Companies Code
A new Belgian Companies’ Code is under preparation. It aims at modernising the regime applicable to companies and associations. One of the four legal scholars chosen as experts by the Minister of Justice Koen Geens to work on this project is Paul Alain Foriers. Hence, Simont Braun is well aware of what is to expect […]