Banking and Finance law in Belgium
Droit bancaire et financier en Belgique – Bank- en financieel recht in België
A decision by the Mons Court of Appeal[1] allowed us to review the notion of interruption of prescription, a fundamental principle in Belgian civil law. This case illustrates the rules applicable to the starting point of prescription and the conditions necessary to interrupt it. The Starting Point of Prescription in Belgian Law In contractual matters, the... Continue Reading →
Discover how alternative compensation plans like Stock-Option Plans (SOP) and Hedged-Stock Option Plans (HESOP) can attract and retain employees. Understand the Belgian tax implications and legal considerations surrounding these plans.
May a bank be held liable when it refuses to grant a credit, or refuses to extend an existing one? The question matters to lawyers, bankers and in-house counsel alike. Freedom of contract is a fundamental principle of Belgian civil law. A bank is not obliged to finance every applicant. But can it abuse its... Continue Reading →
A bank that agrees to grant credit to a client is bound by certain obligations. Failure to meet these obligations may give rise to quasi-delictual civil liability. In the context of so-called “regulated” credit — such as mortgage loans and consumer credit, both of which are governed by Book VII of the Code of Economic... Continue Reading →
Interest rate swaps (IRS) are derivative products known as hedging instruments. In a rising-rate environment, they offer the opportunity to determine and fix future costs on a credit agreement. They can also prove to be a dangerous speculative instrument. This is a brief analysis of how they work and of the legal issues they raise... Continue Reading →
This article was published in the Forum de l'Immobilier, May 2022 (Anthemis). For over twenty years, the early repayment of a credit and the amount claimed by the bank in return for that early termination, whether called reinvestment indemnity, break indemnity or funding loss, have kept business people and banking and credit lawyers busy. The... Continue Reading →
Within the Belgian courts, a large share of seriously contested credit disputes still turns on funding loss and the early repayment of fixed-term credit and loans concluded between a bank and a business before the Act of 21 December 2013 on SME financing entered into force. The issue The question is whether a business may... Continue Reading →
A judgment of the French-speaking Brussels Enterprise Court restates the principles of limitation, which resonate particularly in operations on financial instruments. The facts: a swap and a fall in EURIBOR, non-contractual liability? The case pitted a family company in the timber sector against its bank. The company had credit lines at the variable EURIBOR rate.... Continue Reading →
Through a concrete case of a lost bank card and fraudulent transactions on a client's account, we revisit the respective responsibilities of the bank and the client in payment services matters, much as in phishing cases. The client who believed his card had been swallowed A client carried out banking operations at an ATM inside... Continue Reading →
We revisit a case that sheds light on the October 2007 acquisition of the Dutch bank ABN Amro by the consortium of Fortis, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander, and on the issue and status of certain particular financial instruments. 1. The issue of instruments (CCEN and MCS) to acquire ABN Amro in 2007 In... Continue Reading →
The case: a sell order the bank did not execute A private-banking investor, who had concluded an execution-only agreement (mere order execution, no investment advice or discretionary management) with a bank, complained that it had not executed his instructions to sell subscription rights he held. The bank considered such an order exceeded the agreement's limits... Continue Reading →
What is a (first demand) guarantee? A bank guarantee is a tripartite mechanism by which a bank undertakes towards a beneficiary to pay a set sum, in the cases and on the terms set out in a guarantee letter. Where the guarantee is a first demand guarantee, the beneficiary need only apply to the bank... Continue Reading →
This article is part of our International Sanctions and Restrictive Measures guide. A bank had suspended payment operations for the benefit of a company whose name, "Persian", evoked Iran, a country under an international sanctions regime that banks must imperatively take into account. Embargoes, money laundering and terrorist financing: heavy sanctions and obligations that override... Continue Reading →
In an earlier article we described the case of two elderly phishing victims and a 2019 decision of the Antwerp courts. That decision has now been confirmed by the Antwerp Court of Appeal, in November 2020. Phishing is on the rise Phishing is a fraud by email, SMS, WhatsApp or other online means by which... Continue Reading →
The Brussels Court of First Instance referred to the public prosecutor the file of an insurance broker who had gone a little too far in assisting his client, actively advising him on financial products. Carrying on investment advice or portfolio management without the appropriate authorisation is a criminal offence. The need for prior authorisation to... Continue Reading →
This article relates to another on investment advice given by an insurance broker, and is an extract from our "Banking Case Law Barometer 2019", published in the D.A.O.R. review. A case before the Liège Court of Appeal gave rise to an interesting decision on the liability of an insurance broker for advice on branch 23... Continue Reading →
The Belgian Act of 20 December 2020 on temporary and structural provisions in matters of justice in the context of the fight against the spread of Covid-19 affects attachments until at least 31 January 2021. Among the measures adopted: a temporary increase of the non-attachable thresholds (Article 1409 of the Judicial Code) and an extension... Continue Reading →
The Brussels attachment judge, rarely enough to be worth noting, considered a bank's termination of an investment credit granted to a business in 2010 and repayable monthly over 20 years. The business was only one instalment in arrears at the time of termination. The business had opposed the order preceding executory attachment on the mortgaged... Continue Reading →
In de juridisch-economische wereld is het een verhaal dat reeds meer dan 20 jaar duurt: kan een bank een wederbeleggingsvergoeding (funding loss) vorderen wanneer een onderneming haar krediet terugbetaalt vóór de contractueel overeengekomen termijn?
A new funding-loss judgment from the Court of Cassation (Dutch-speaking division) of 18 June 2020. In an earlier article, we reported the Cassation judgment of 27 April on the features distinguishing interest-bearing loans from credit facilities, and the possible recharacterisation of a credit as a loan. In this new judgment, the Court ruled on an... Continue Reading →
