RegTech in Belgium

It is often said that RegTech is the new FinTech. That does not seem entirely correct. While FinTech companies are offering financial services to customers (often in competition with traditional financial service providers), RegTech companies are more to be seen as technical support service providers. They are at the service of both disrupting and traditional financial […]

PSD2: Licensed payment service institutions, do you comply with the new authorisation requirements?

Introduction Much has already been said and written about important new features of the PSD2 such as the introduction of new payment services, increased security measures, negative scope precision, incident reporting, improved home-host cooperation for agents/branches, etc. For existing payment service institutions (“PSI”) (i.e. payment institutions which obtained their license prior to 13 January 2018 […]

Simont Braun’s main practices highly recommended by Legal 500

Simont Braun has again achieved great results in the last edition of Legal 500, which recognizes and ranks the best law firms in more than 100 jurisdictions. We are also delighted to see more than 10 partners recommended: –          Intellectual Property: Tier 2 – Fernand de Visscher –          Dispute Resolution: Tier 2 – Sandrine Hirsch, […]

The new Belgian Security Act amended and postponed

The Belgian act of 11 July 2013 with regard to security rights on movable assets (the “Security Act”) is not yet in force. Implementing regulations were expected to organize the pledges register and to correct some inaccuracies and loopholes. The Belgian Law of 25 December 2016 (the “Law”) amends the Security Act to ensure its effective […]

Simont Braun achieves superior results in Chambers Global and Europe 2017

Simont Braun has again received very good results in Chambers 2017 both Europe and Global, improving all its rankings in the Global edition, with its main practice areas being recommended and no less than 8 lawyers being praised for their work. Our Intellectual Property department, “noted for its depth of expertise”, continues to occupy a very […]

Rafaël Jafferali as an arbitrator at Brussels Pre-Moot

Rafaël Jafferali will sit as an arbitrator at the 4th Brussels Pre-Moot competition, which will be held on 3rd and 4th April 2017. The Brussels Pre-Moot, organized by CEPANI, is a pre-competition for the renowned Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot on International Sales Law and International Arbitration. The Pre-Moot will help the participants from all over the […]

Simont Braun’s Digital Finance Team assists mozzeno with the launch of its innovative platform

Brussels, March 2017 Simont Braun assisted the Brussels-based FinTech mozzeno on the launch of the first Belgian digital platform enabling individuals to participate indirectly in the funding of other individuals’ consumer loans. The loans are financed through securitization, by issuing notes to which the investors subscribe. In such a highly regulated sector, our team prepared […]

The right to data portability and bank account information

In evolving to a Single Digital Market, the use of consumer data becomes more and more important for service providers. With regard to financial institutions, exploiting payment data is of particular interest, not only to reduce costs and improve product quality, but also to offer new and innovative financial services and, in general, an increased […]

Modest changes to the Belgian Arbitration Act

With effect as of January 1st, 2017, the Act of 25 December 2016 (known as the “Pot-Pourri IV Act”) amended among other things certain provisions of Part Six (i.e. articles 1676 to 1723) of the Belgian Judicial Code. This Part Six contains the provisions on arbitration (the so-called “Belgian Arbitration Act” or “BAA”). The amendments […]

Jacques Malherbe joins Simont Braun’s Tax department

SIMONT BRAUN is pleased to announce that Jacques Malherbe has joined its tax department as Of Counsel on the 1st of January 2017 where he will be working next to Lievin De Wulf (Partner) and Martina Bertha (Of Counsel). Jacques Malherbe has a well-known reputation in the field of tax law that he taught at […]

Curing rules on parallel import of pharmaceuticals?

On 7 November 2016 the Belgian Supreme Court (Cour de cassation – Hof van cassatie) gave judgment in two cases regarding the repackaging of pharmaceuticals, wherein it ruled in favour of the parallel importer with respect to the exhaustion of trademark rights principle. Simont Braun represented with success the defendant in these two cases. Just three […]