Chillin'Competition

When did the new Belgian competition Act enter into force?

If you run a Google search most results (notably a few dozen law firm’s newsletters saying exactly the same things) will tell you that it did on September 1^st, 2013.

Wrong answer.

You can’t blame them, though. On August 30^th The Belgian official journal (Moniteur Belge) published a Royal decree providing that the new Act would enter into force on the first working day following the said publication (that is, on September 1^st).

However, it seems that the Royal decree wasn’t really Royal, because no one realized that the King had not yet signed it (apparently he was on holidays, elephant hunting, or doing whatever it is that Belgian Kings do), and that therefore it was devoid of legal effects.

That’s why on September 4^th a new Royal decree was published on the official journal stating that the publication of the previous Royal decree (actually there were two of them) shall be considered null and void (“il y a lieu de considérer la publication des deux arrêtés royaux susmentionnés comme nulle et non avenue. Ces arrêtés ont été retirés avant leur signature”).

And then, on September 6^th, yet another Royal decree was published providing that the Act would enter into force on that very same day.

So, between September 1^st and September 4^th people thought that the Act had entered into force, when in reality that wasn’t the case.

We hear there were hearings held in those days in which lawyers were pleading on the basis of the new Act, but were told that they were misinformed.

True story.