Main Developments in Competition Law and Policy 2025 - Belgium

In 2025, the Belgian Competition Authority (“BCA”) made many headlines. It pushed through commitments in the banking and agrifood sectors, imposed one of the first fines for anticompetitive category management in the EU, and kept a tight watch on fibre network cooperation agreements. Sports governing bodies were hit with several interim measures decisions targeting football, hockey and cycling governance.

At the same time, the BCA took an open approach to issues such as sustainability, publishing draft guidelines and inviting debate. It also issued guidance on information exchanges in the pharmaceutical sector. In parallel, it launched a sector inquiry into price indexation mechanisms, signalling that pricing practices remain firmly on its radar.

Against this backdrop, we highlight the most important Belgian competition law developments of the past year.

1      Antitrust in action: fines, commitments and enforcement in priority sectors and beyond

A.    When the hammer falls: antitrust fines and commitments

Fair fries for all: the BCA accepts Belgapom commitments on potato pricing

The BCA’s Priorities Paper 2025 mentions the agri-food value chain as one of its five key enforcement areas, like in previous years. Already in January, the BCA put its words into action by accepting binding commitments to terminate its investigation into Belgapom’s weekly potato purchase price index.

Belgapom is a trade association representing more than 95% of Belgian potato processors (e.g. producers of frozen fries) and traders. After the Belgian federal government stopped setting public potato price quotations in 2001, Belgapom created its own weekly “Belgapom Quotation” price index to reflect the most common purchase price on the physical market for certain processing potatoes. A Belgapom Pricing Committee sets this quotation based on members’ individual purchase prices from the previous day and their assessment of market sentiment.

In November 2021, the Belgian Minister of Agriculture had requested the BCA to investigate whether the design and methodology used by the Pricing Committee for determining the Belgapom Quotation could amount to prohibited anti-competitive information exchange.

In its decision, the BCA recognised that price indexes such as the Belgapom Quotation can bring two main benefits: they reduce the uncertainties linked to the volatile potato prices for growers and potato processors and help address the lack of transparency and asymmetry of information in the physical potato market. However, it considered that the weekly and systematic exchanges of very recent, non-aggregated and non-public information between competing purchasers (i.e. the members of the Belgapom Pricing Committee) risked revealing procurement strategies and facilitating coordination on purchase prices, to the detriment of growers (who receive a lower price than absent the price index) and downstream customers.

To resolve these concerns, Belgapom committed to: (1) adopting more objective methodology to determine the potato purchase price quotation and (2) introducing a digital platform to collect and process the data of each individual Belgapom Pricing Committee member in an anonymised way without any interaction with other members. These commitments are set out in a new dedicated rulebook accessible on Belgapom’s website. Compliance is monitored by ad hoc controls from the Committee chair and annual audits by an external auditor. The BCA will further retain oversight until the end of 2026 through annual reporting obligations.

Cash still matters: major banks commit to ATM availability

On 24 March 2025, nearly three years after its opening, the BCA accepted binding commitments from the four main Belgian banks (BNP Paribas Fortis, KBC, ING and Belfius) to close its investigation into their initiative to bundle their ATMs into a single integrated network, “Batopin", created in 2020 to optimise geographical distribution and reduce costs.

In May 2024, the BCA concluded its preliminary analysis, acknowledging that an agreement between the Belgian federal government and Febelfin in March 2023 on access to ATMs had already improved the situation. However, it also conveyed concerns over increased average travel distance and time for consumers to ATMs, as well as risks of deteriorating service quality at remaining ATMs (e.g. longer waiting times or more limited availability) (see also last year’s edition of this blog).

To address the BCA’s concerns, Batopin proposed a final set of commitments in February 2025, incorporating feedback from the BCA’s market test regarding the draft November 2024 commitments. First, Batopin committed to expanding its ATM network with 70 new ATM sites by the end of 2027 spread across the country. These come on top of the 220 additional sites already committed to the Belgian federal government as part of the 2023 agreement. Second, Batopin guaranteed that presence will be maintained until 2030 in the municipalities covered by its current location plan, and that it will ensure coverage enabling 95% of Belgians to withdraw cash and 85% to deposit cash within 5 km by road of their home. Third, it committed to ensuring at least 95% network availability, indicating the nearest Batopin site in case of unavailability, and maintaining 24/7 ATM access. Finally, it committed to submitting annual reports to the BCA on 31 March covering the progress of deployment of additional sites, the communal presence, network coverage, and the monitoring of the functioning.

Shelf wars: first fines for anti-competitive category management in pharma

On 24 April 2025, the BCA imposed fines on Johnson & Johnson Consumer (c. €4.7 million), Boehringer Ingelheim (c. €1.7 million) and Haleon (c. €4.8 million) following a settlement regarding anti-competitive aspects of a category management arrangement between them for the placement of over-the-counter (“OTC”) medicines at selected Belgian pharmacies, the “Space Management Project” (“SMAN”).

Category management arrangements are commercial practices whereby a distributor entrusts one or more suppliers with the organisation of a product category, which may include not only the supplier's products but also competitors' products. These arrangements are not prohibited as such by competition rules.

However, the BCA concluded that SMAN showed anti-competitive aspects, finding that its three founding partners’ main objective was to share and control the placement of OTC medicines on pharmacy shelves by favouring their own products in the visibility, design and implementation of planograms at the disadvantage or exclusion of rival suppliers. As Belgian legislation permits advertising for OTC medicines (with restrictions), visibility plays a crucial role in consumers' decision-making. The BCA also took into account that the SMAN project was the only collective category management project of this type in Belgium until the arrival of competing service provider Redpharma in 2014.

Two aspects in the BCA’s fine amount determination stand out. First, the BCA recognised the novelty of this type of infringement and that there is little guidance or precedent on the application of competition rules in the EU concerning the boundaries of category management as applied in this case. Inspired by the European Commission’s (“Commission”) approach in Case AT.40178 – Car Emissions (2021, para. 235), it therefore granted a 20% reduction of the base amount to all parties involved. The novelty of this type of infringement may soon be gone though. Already in November 2025, the Commission announced its own first investigation of this kind, into potentially abusive category management practices by energy drink manufacturer Red Bull.

Second, the BCA granted a further 5% fine reduction to reflect the long duration of its investigation, in line with the Commission’s approach in Case AT.39563 – Retail Food Packaging (2020, paras. 69-70) (see also the Court of Justice (“CJEU”) in Case C-452/11 P – Heineken (2012, paras. 97-100)). The BCA, however, explicitly noted that this reduction was purely granted in the exercise of its discretion in setting fines and that this cannot be interpreted as an acknowledgement of infringement of the reasonable time principle.

Power play: market sharing in intraday electricity trading

On 23 June 2025, the BCA sanctioned Nord Pool AS and Nord Pool Finland (together “Nord Pool”) and EPEX SPOT (through its subsidiaries APX Holding and Belpex) for their participation in a market-sharing arrangement in the electricity trading sector from March 2009 to December 2015. Nord Pool AS operated a platform for intraday electricity trading on several European markets, with its subsidiary Nord Pool Finland holding the licence for the Elbas intraday trading system. APX Holding provided electricity trading services, notably in Belgium through Belpex (acquired by EPEX SPOT in December 2016).

The investigation focused on the Principles of Cooperation (“PoC”) signed on 3 December 2009, under which Nord Pool agreed not to conduct intraday electricity trading activities in Belgium and the Netherlands, whilst APX and Belpex agreed not to operate in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. These market-sharing provisions were reinforced by an exclusive Elbas software licence, a non-competition clause to be incorporated into a Service Level Agreement (subject to a €100,000 penalty), and mutual notification obligations regarding negotiations with third parties.

The BCA highlights that market-sharing arrangements qualify as restrictions by object under settled case law. It further considered that the conclusion of a non-competition agreement itself indicates that the parties are at least potential competitors. After examining technical, economic and regulatory barriers, the BCA concluded that Nord Pool would have had real and concrete possibilities to access the Belgian intraday market absent the agreements.

EPEX SPOT, which disclosed the arrangement upon acquiring APX and Belpex, received full leniency immunity. Nord Pool received a modest fine of €79,810. The BCA emphasised this was not due to mitigating circumstances, but because the penalty rules then in force capped fines at 10% of Belgian domestic turnover (now aligned with the Commission’s 10% of global turnover cap). Nord Pool had little Belgian presence at the time, precisely because of the market-sharing arrangement. For many years, the energy value chain has been a usual suspect in the BCA’s annual enforcement priorities and the BCA’s Priorities Paper 2025 is no exception.

B.    Up in smoke? Court of Cassation annuls tobacco cartel ruling

On 30 October 2025, the Belgian Court of Cassation delivered an important judgment in the long‑running tobacco pricing case. It partially annulled a 2023 ruling of the Brussels Markets Court in proceedings brought by Philip Morris Benelux, Etablissements L. Lacroix Fils, British American Tobacco Belgium and JT International Company Netherlands against the BCA. The Brussels Markets Court had upheld the BCA’s finding of an infringement of Article 101(1) Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU”) and Article IV.1 of the Belgian Code of Economic Law (“CEL”) confirming the existence of concerted practices involving the exchange of price information between manufacturers via wholesalers with a restrictive object. At the same time, it annulled the decision in part, particularly as regards the duration of the alleged infringements and the single and continuous infringement analysis. It therefore referred the case back to the BCA to determine the exact start and end of the infringement period and the determination of the fine.

The Court of Cassation held that the Brussels Markets Court could not annul the decision on its temporal scope while simultaneously confirming the existence of an infringement, as the two findings are inherently linked. The Court of Cassation referred the case back to the Brussels Markets Court, differently composed, which will need to reassess both the characterisation and the temporal boundaries of the alleged information‑exchange practices.

C.    On the radar: newly opened BCA investigations

Protecting Belgian beer prices: AB InBev's beer supply under scrutiny

In January 2025, the BCA opened a formal investigation into potential abuse of dominance and anticompetitive agreements by AB InBev.

The investigation follows complaints from the Federation of Belgian Drinks Traders and various other players in the beer supply chain over the past year about AB InBev’s commercial conditions for the supply of beer to wholesalers and to operators of restaurants, cafes and bars (on-trade) in the Belgian market. The BCA has confirmed that the investigation relates to both pricing and non-pricing contractual terms but did not disclose further details at this stage.

The global beer production and distribution giant’s Belgian business has previously been under antitrust scrutiny, with, for example an over €200 million fine from the Commission in 2019 for restricting parallel imports of cheaper beer from the Netherlands into Belgium.

Raid alert in the beauty aisle: surprise inspections and the BCA’s updated dawn raid rulebook

On 24 June 2025, the BCA confirmed that its Investigations and Prosecution Service is conducting inspections at the premises of companies active in the personal care and retail sectors. The BCA said it had received information pertaining to possible anticompetitive agreements.

Four days earlier, the Authority had published updated guidelines on the conduct of inspections to replace older guidelines from December 2013, bringing them into line with current practice. The new guidelines explicitly mention the BCA’s power to search residences of executives, directors, managers, administrators and other staff members, as well as their private devices if used for professional purposes.

General investigation into price indexation mechanisms

In February 2025, the BCA launched its first general investigation under Article IV.47 CEL into sectoral price revision and indexation mechanisms (such as the Belgapom index), given their potential to fuel inflation. By mapping indexation practices and identifying those that may raise competition concerns, the BCA signals that seemingly technical contractual clauses may be scrutinised where they risk amplifying inflation or harming consumer welfare. In September 2025, the BCA broadened its evidence base through a public call for contributions, inviting stakeholders to share their experience with price revision and indexation mechanisms. A final report is expected in early 2026.

D.    Wired for change: telecom and fibre networks under the spotlight

The telecommunications sector continues to attract scrutiny from the BCA and other competition authorities across Europe, with ongoing debates about whether telco fragmentation resulting from strict competition rules hinders investment and innovation. The roll-out of high-capacity fibre networks across the territory remains an important challenge for Belgium's competitiveness and future economic development. In 2025, the BCA maintained its focus on this sector through extended investigations into fibre network infrastructure cooperation agreements, in close collaboration with the Belgian Institute for Postal Services. The BCA also actively participates in the ongoing competitiveness discussions in this regard at the European level.

Building on the BCA's 2023 commitment to scrutinise cooperation agreements for fibre network deployment, 2025 witnessed important developments in the two following major investigations.

Flanders connected: The Proximus/Fiberklaar and Telenet/Wyre story

Proximus/Fiberklaar and Telenet/Wyre envisage a possible cooperation for the roll-out of Fibre to the Home (“FTTH”) networks in medium-density areas in Flanders, which led to the opening of an investigation by the BCA Prosecutor General, Damien Gerard, on 26 July 2024. The telco providers intend to share the deployment of fibre networks in Flemish mid-dense areas (“B Areas”), with mutual access to each other’s networks, and the use by Proximus of Wyre’s hybrid fibre-coaxial (“HFC”) network in Flemish rural areas (“C Areas”). They want to reach at least 2 million homes passed in B Areas by 2036, with 85% to be completed by 2028.

As the operators will rely on passive access to each other’s networks rather than deploying their own, the BCA deemed that the project significantly diminishes infrastructure competition and investment, and in C Areas effectively eradicates infrastructure competition between main broadband networks in Flanders. To address the BCA's concerns, Proximus/Fiberklaar and Telenet/Wyre offered commitments to grant long-term access to all their networks at fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (“FRAND”) terms in exchange for the considerable cost savings and value generated by their cooperation. They also committed to a cutback of around 30% in fibre network access tariffs in the cooperation areas. The BCA's Prosecutor General stated that the project, combined with the commitments, could generate direct benefits of more than €2.5 billion.

On 15 October 2025, the BCA initiated a public consultation to seek market players’ views on the proposed commitments. The BCA provisionally considers that they address its concerns and could entail a fair sharing of the savings and other benefits. The consultation ran until 21 November 2025, and is a prerequisite before closing the investigation and making the commitments binding. The conclusion of this investigation will be closely watched as it will set a focal precedent for fibre cooperation agreements in Belgium.

Wallonia wired: Proximus and Orange join forces

In the same vein, Proximus and Orange Belgium envisage a cooperation aimed at expanding the roll-out and access to gigabit networks, with a focus on less densely populated areas of Wallonia, and at augmenting the employment of existing gigabit networks. On 31 July 2025, the BCA Prosecutor General launched an ex officio investigation to determine whether and to what extent the cooperation may restrict competition between the network operators and telecommunications service providers and, whether it is likely to ensure that a fair share of the cost-savings and other efficiency gains are passed on to users of the networks. Given the scale of investment needed for the deployment of fibre networks, the investigation will adopt a long-term perspective, reflecting on the existing market structure, the roll-out prospects, and competitive dynamics likely to emerge without the cooperation (i.e. the counterfactual).

Brussels calling: BCA joins the European competitiveness debate

In April 2025, the BCA joined other national competition authorities (“NCAs”) in a statement on Strengthening Competitiveness and Competition in the EU Single Market (the “Statement”), highlighting competition as a key driver of productivity, investment and innovation against the backdrop of the Letta and Draghi reports. The Statement contests the claim that fragmentation in electronic communications, purportedly caused by overly strict competition rules, hampers investment and innovation.

The NCAs underline that competition in telecoms still mainly occurs at national level and across several layers (infrastructure and services), and that service-level rivalry cannot balance a reduced number of competing infrastructure providers. Fewer infrastructure players can undermine incentives to advance quality, coverage, density and innovation, and weaken resilience and supply security.

The Statement provides important context to the BCA’s detailed review of the fibre cooperations by the key national telecom operators in Flanders and Wallonia. The BCA takes a steady and weighed stance: recognising the necessity of major infrastructure investment while warranting that consolidation or cooperation does not unduly restrict competition.

E.     First whistle: interim measures shake up the sports sector

As in previous years, the sports sector – and particularly sports associations – featured prominently in the BCA's 2025 enforcement activities, with three interim measures decisions addressing competition concerns in football, inline hockey, and professional cycling.

Levelling the playing field? Football quota and relegation rules

On 1 August 2025, the BCA rejected an application for interim measures filed by three clubs of the Challenger Pro League seeking to suspend new rules adopted by the Royal Belgian Football Association ("RBFA”). The Challenger Pro League is the second highest professional football league in Belgium and includes both regular football clubs (“classic clubs”) and youth teams of players under 23 years of age belonging to clubs which have their main team playing in the top division (“U23 teams”). The contested rules introduce a quota of minimum four U23 clubs in the Challenger Pro League, together with specific relegation and promotion rules applicable to those teams.

When assessing interim measures, the BCA must find a prima facie infringement and an urgent risk of serious, imminent and irreparable harm. The BCA found that the quota introduces less stringent promotion and relegation rules for U23 clubs than for classic clubs, leading prima facie to discrimination which may affect competition on a sporting level. It also noted that this discrimination could weaken the incentives for U23 clubs to field competitive teams for games with lower stakes, which could distort competition in the market for the sale of football as a spectator sport. However, in rejecting the application, the BCA found that the quota only affects the likelihood of relegation, without making it certain. The quota’s effects will only materialise at the end of the season.

Skating on thin ice: hockey eligibility disputes

On 13 August 2025, the BCA rejected an application for interim measures filed by eight inline hockey players and the Deutscher Inline Hockey Verband (“DIHV”) seeking to suspend sanctions imposed by the Royal Belgian Ice Hockey Federation (“RBIHF”). The RBIHF had penalised (affiliated) players for participating in an alternative inline hockey competition, the Deutsche Inline Hockey Liga (“DIHL”), organised by the DIHV. The sanctions included exclusion from the Belgian national team, potential denial of licences for the following season's RBIHF competition, and classifications as “an illegal player”.

However, a critical development occurred on 1 July 2025, when the RBIHF's board of directors decided to cease all its inline hockey activities. As a result of this decision, the players concerned are no longer subject to the RBIHF's rules and are free to participate in the DIHL competition, with none of the previously imposed sanctions being maintained. The BCA found that there was no sufficiently serious, immediate and difficult-to-repair disadvantage remaining for the applicants that would necessitate the imposition of interim measures.

Shifting gears: cycling equipment standards face suspension

On 9 October 2025, the BCA ordered the International Cycling Union ("UCI”) to suspend implementation of its “Maximum Gear Ratio Standard”, limiting the maximum gear ratio used by professional cyclists in competition. The standard entered into force on 1 August 2025 and would apply from the Tour of Guangxi on 14 to 19 October 2025.

SRAM, a major cycling transmission systems manufacturer, filed a complaint to the BCA, which led to the interim measures. The BCA found prima facie concerns under both Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, identifying serious procedural shortcomings related to access, transparency and discrimination. Equipment suppliers were not meaningfully consulted, the UCI deferred dialogue with SRAM until after testing, the criteria for selecting the gear ratio limit were not documented, and the standard was framed in product-specific terms that singled out SRAM's transmission systems. Whilst safety is a legitimate objective, the BCA preliminary held that the standard does not involve necessary or proportionate means, as less restrictive, data-driven methods appeared available.

The BCA also found serious, imminent and difficult-to-repair harm to SRAM and teams using its equipment, including exclusion of its transmission systems from test events, reputational damage, lost sales and sponsorship visibility, and forced redirection of R&D resources. Race results and reputation effects are irreversible and could force longer-term market shifts, rendering harm difficult to repair. The requirement of urgency was also met as the start of the Tour of Guanxi was nearby, and the harm could materialise before conclusion of the main proceedings.

The BCA ordered the UCI to suspend implementation immediately and no later than 13 October 2025, prohibiting the UCI from imposing similar gear ratio limits pending a transparent, objective, non-discriminatory process or a merits decision.

2  Tying the knot: merger control highlights

The BCA kept up a solid merger control practice in 2025, but with far fewer decisions than in 2024. It adopted 17 clearance decisions (down from 43), of which 15 were Phase 1 clearances under the simplified procedure and two were Phase 1 clearances with remedies.

In October 2025, the BCA issued the first edition of its Merger Insights. The report explains the role of the dedicated Merger Task Force, set up in 2022, and confirms that over 80% of deals are now handled under the simplified procedure, reflecting Belgium’s broad criteria for simplified review. It also underlines how much work is done in pre‑notification. The BCA’s case teams use this phase to push the substantive review forward, collect detailed information and even launch market tests (where waivers are granted). To improve predictability, the Merger Task Force has rolled out regular “state of play” meetings during pre‑notification so parties understand the authority’s framework and the progress of the review.

Flying under the radar? Below-threshold M&A face scrutiny

At the same time, the BCA has cemented its frontrunner role on below‑threshold deals, with two new investigations as detailed below. It is recalled that the BCA was one of the first NCAs to apply Towercast in practice, starting in 2023 with Proximus/EDPnet, where it imposed interim measures and ultimately secured EDPnet’s divestment. The Towercast doctrine is increasingly applied across the bloc. For example, the French Competition Authority fined Doctolib €4.7 million for abuse of dominance in online medical appointment booking, taking into account its 2018 acquisition of rival MonDocteur, a non‑notifiable deal assessed through the Towercast lens.

This sits within the broader European trend towards closer scrutiny of below‑threshold mergers: the Commission and several NCAs have been exploring routes to investigate potentially harmful transactions falling outside classic merger control, increasingly relying on antitrust rules, and advocating for call‑in powers. In Belgium, the BCA’s 2025 Priorities Paper indicates that it is actively examining a call‑in power, and President Axel Desmedt has openly championed such a tool. Several Member States, including Czech Republic, France, the Netherlands, and Malta, are also moving towards call‑in regimes, although some proposals have drawn criticism for their breadth.

Turning back to the BCA’s Towercast applications, on 22 January 2025, the BCA opened a Towercast-based investigation into Dossche Mills' proposed acquisition of Ceres' artisan bakery segment, relying on Article 101 TFEU and Article IV.1 CEL. Dossche Mills and Ceres are the two largest producers and suppliers of flour to artisan bakeries in Belgium. Following an accelerated investigation – including a market consultation – the BCA shared preliminary conclusions in early March 2025. Dossche Mills and Ceres subsequently confirmed withdrawal from the transaction, and the BCA closed the case.

On 12 November 2025, the BCA opened a further investigation into Live Nation's acquisition of the Pukkelpop music festival, this time at the Minister for Economic Affairs’ explicit request. The deal raised concerns under anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominance, given Live Nation's multiple roles across Belgium's live entertainment ecosystem and Pukkelpop's status as one of Belgium's five largest music festivals. Specifically, Live Nation is the organiser of three of Belgium's largest festivals, manager of large concert venues including AFAS Dome and Forest National, provider of artist booking services, and operator of the Ticketmaster ticketing platform.

Multipharma/Popelin deal gets conditional green light

On 4 February 2025, the BCA conditionally approved Multipharma’s acquisition of Popelin (Goed pharmacies). The case illustrates the BCA’s focus on local competitive dynamics in a heavily regulated sector, where pharmacies remain subject to market forces despite detailed licensing and pricing rules.

Multipharma operates 279 pharmacies in Belgium. Popelin, which had taken over Goed Farma’s activities, ran 92 pharmacies in Flanders alongside wholesale distribution and support services. The BCA assessed the deal’s impact both on full‑line wholesale distribution and on the retail sale of pharmaceutical products by pharmacies. It put particular emphasis on prices, quality and the accessibility of pharmaceutical products and services.

The BCA identified serious doubts in 14 local markets around the parties’ pharmacies in Mechelen and Willebroek, driven by the increased market power Multipharma would obtain in these service areas. To remedy the potential anti‑competitive effects, Multipharma offered a package of commitments. In Mechelen, it agreed to divest four pharmacies, not to apply for new licences in the affected service areas, and to refrain from acquiring existing licences without prior BCA approval. In Willebroek, it committed to permanently close two already temporarily closed pharmacies, not to apply for new licences, and likewise not to acquire existing licences without prior approval. These obligations are set to apply for five or ten years.

Water works: Joint Venture cleared with information barriers

On 15 July 2025, the BCA conditionally approved the creation of Waterunie Operator, a joint venture combining all operational activities of De Watergroep and Farys, two integrated public water supply companies operating in different Flemish municipalities. The BCA examined the transaction's impact on two markets: public water services and industrial water services.

The public water services market did not raise competition concerns as the parties hold natural monopolies in their respective territories with no geographical overlap. Although competition "for the market" could theoretically occur when municipalities renew water concessions, evidence showed that switching is rare due to the strict regulatory framework and continuous oversight by the Flanders Environment Agency and, from 1 January 2026, the Flemish Utility Regulator. This evidence is notable as it illustrates the BCA’s willingness to ground its assessment in market reality, prioritising factual competitive dynamics over theoretical possibilities of competition.

Serious concerns arose, however, in the industrial water services market. Both De Watergroep (through its subsidiary Azulatis) and Farys offer competitive Water-as-a-Service solutions to industrial customers. The BCA identified a risk of conglomerate effects: as monopoly tap water providers, the parties gain access to commercially sensitive information about customers' water needs, which could be exploited by their industrial water units to gain unfair advantages when bidding for competitive industrial water contracts. To address these concerns, the parties offered behavioural commitments including information exchange bans between the water utilities and Azulatis, governance measures (cooling-off periods, confidentiality obligations), contract management safeguards (NDAs, limits on staff sharing), and referral restrictions. These measures are complemented by organisational ringfencing and will be monitored by an independent third party for ten years, with annual reporting to the BCA.

3 Soft law, real impact: informal opinions, sector guidance and market investigations

Green light for green initiatives: coffee pads opinion and BCA draft sustainability guidelines

The winter of 2025 further confirmed the BCA’s growing focus on sustainability initiatives. In quick succession, the BCA (i) published draft guidelines on sustainability agreements (“BCA Draft Sustainability Guidelines”) for public consultation and (ii) applied its 2020 communication on informal opinions to a joint sustainability initiative of the Belgian retail federation Comeos and the coffee trade association Koffiecafé (“Coffee Pads Opinion”). Comeos brings together, amongst others, supermarkets commercialising coffee under their own brand, such as Colruyt and Delhaize, while Koffiecafé counts among its members the key coffee roasters active in Belgium. Together, they represent more than 90 % of coffee pads sold in Belgium.

The BCA’s informal Coffee Pads Opinion concerns a joint initiative for Comeos and Koffiecafé members to sell only industrially compostable coffee pads in Belgium from August 2026. Importantly, this initiative anticipates and brings forward a forthcoming statutory obligation laid down in the EU Regulation on Packaging and Packaging Waste (“PPWR”), that imposes extended producer responsibility on packaging producers (including coffee pads), as from 12 February 2028. Both coffee associations requested an informal opinion from the BCA’s President.

The BCA’s President opined that the coffee pads initiative is unlikely to fall within the ambit of the prohibition of restrictive agreements. The initiative includes tangible environmental benefits, including a reduction of waste, a decrease in contamination of other waste streams, and a boost to recycling efforts, and involves a clear step towards compliance with clearly defined and binding future regulatory requirements under the PPWR. The Draft Sustainability Guidelines expressly state that agreements which (merely) seek to ensure compliance with sufficiently precise EU or national legal obligations are, in principle, unlikely to restrict competition. The BCA President also relied on the sustainability agreements chapter in the European Commission’s 2023 Horizontal Guidelines to inform his assessment.

The Coffee Pads Opinion offers a concrete illustration of the BCA’s emerging framework on sustainability agreements and its pragmatic stance towards sustainability cooperation. It follows on the BCA’s support for the living wages in the banana sector initiative discussed in last year’s post. At the same time, the BCA signals that it will remain vigilant to avoid any “instrumentalisation” of sustainability goals as a pretext for unlawful coordination. The BCA will carefully scrutinise the necessity and proportionality of any competition-restrictive elements against the intended sustainability benefits.

Sharing is caring? Guidance on pharma information exchange

In September 2025, the BCA published guidance on information exchanges between pharmaceutical companies applying for reimbursement of combination therapies. The guidance aims to facilitate patient access to innovative treatments and to support the development and market entry of combination therapies for serious diseases, while ensuring competition law compliance. The BCA developed it at the request of the National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (“NIHDI”) and in close collaboration with industry associations Pharma.be and Medaxes

Combination therapies combine two or more medicines – often developed by different companies – to improve outcomes for serious diseases. Typically, they involve a “backbone” medicine, already authorised and reimbursed as monotherapy, and an “add-on” medicine that completes the therapeutic combination. Currently, only the add-on company can submit a reimbursement application to NIHDI, with the backbone company joining later. This sequence can create legal and financial uncertainty, for instance where changes to the reimbursement conditions of the backbone medicine alter the economic balance of the combination. To address this and facilitate market access, NIHDI is considering allowing parallel applications.

Against this background, the BCA’s guidance clarifies under which conditions information exchanges in reimbursement procedures for combination therapies may be compatible with Article 101 TFEU and Article IV.1(1) CEL. The BCA first explicitly underlines that competition law continues to apply in the context of regulatory initiatives, even where legislation or public authorities encourage companies to share information.

The BCA emphasises that exchanges between competitors may be acceptable where strictly necessary to obtain reimbursement. The BCA’s guidance offers a non-exhaustive list of data that companies may or may not share in this specific context. For example, epidemiological information, patient level data, therapeutic value summaries and budget impact analyses based on public prices are generally acceptable. Cost structures, net prices, margins, detailed budget impact analyses and marketing strategies are not.

The BCA’s guidance recommends practical safeguards: dedicated teams, strict confidentiality protocols, need-to-know access restrictions, and clear compliance documentation. Pharmaceutical companies remain free to engage in, terminate or continue a reimbursement procedure at any stage, and must independently assess the necessity and proportionality of any exchange. The BCA notes that the guidance supports self-assessment but does not prejudge individual cases.

The timing is notable: the guidance arrives as the draft EU “pharma package” signals reforms to market access and collaboration frameworks. It offers practical pointers for companies navigating regulatory requirements and competition constraints when developing combination therapies.

4  Top of the market: dominance or dependence?

Economic dependence decoded: the Court of Cassation clarifies

On 20 February 2025, the Court of Cassation settled a key open question regarding the prohibition of an abuse of economic dependence under Article IV.2/1 CEL. It confirms that economic dependence does not require a pre-existing contractual relationship between the parties. As discussed in our previous blogpost, this has been a central question in the Tunstall case before the Brussels Enterprise Court (2022) and the Brussels Court of Appeal (2023).

In brief, the Tunstall case concerns a dispute in the telehealth sector. Tunstall owned a patented communication protocol used in teleassistance services, and refused to licence it to Victrix, a competing platform provider. The latter had no contractual relationship with Tunstall. Victrix claimed that this refusal constituted an abuse of economic dependence under Article IV.2/1 CEL.

The Court of Cassation aligned its ruling with the opinion provided by the Advocate General (“AG”) Bénédicte Inghels, and relied on two principal arguments. First, the text of Article IV.2/1 CEL does not distinguish according to whether a practice forms part of a contractual framework, and certain expressly covered practices (such as refusal to sell) can occur independently of any contractual link. Second, the legislative objective of protecting market functioning and smaller businesses would be compromised if application were conditional on a contractual relationship.

Trial and error: Roche faces abuse of dominance charges over biosimilar delay tactics

In spring 2025, the BCA sent a statement of objections (“SO”) to the Roche Group, alleging that it had abused its dominance between 2017 and 2020 to delay the market entry of biosimilar rivals to two of its oncology treatments. Biosimilars are highly similar versions of existing biological medicines that, once on the market, typically drive significant price reductions and healthcare savings.

According to the BCA, Roche’s strategy had two pillars. First, granting Belgian hospitals financial incentives designed to discourage competitive tenders between Roche products and biosimilars. Second, disseminating incorrect or misleading information regarding the use of biosimilars in combination therapies. Together, these practices allegedly induced hospitals to continue sourcing exclusively from Roche despite available biosimilar alternatives. The SO reflects the preliminary position of the BCA's Prosecution Service. Roche now has the opportunity to respond in writing and at an oral hearing, after which the College will decide whether to adopt a formal infringement decision.

The Belgian case follows a ruling in Romania, where in October 2024 the High Court of Cassation and Justice confirmed that Roche Romania had abused its dominant position by eliminating competition in public tenders for the same active substances, notably by selling products to partner distributors at prices higher than its own tender bids between 2017 and 2019. The Belgian and Romanian cases illustrate a broader enforcement focus on practices hindering biosimilar uptake, consistent with the Commission’s 2019 pharmaceutical sector report, which found that biosimilars are particularly vulnerable to anticompetitive interference.

Vital big data: IQVIA faces investigation over pharmaceutical data practices

In December 2025, following a complaint and taking up on its enforcement priorities, the BCA opened a formal investigation against IQVIA over alleged abuse of dominance in the Belgian pharmaceutical data collection and processing sector. The investigation targets certain contractual arrangements that may restrict competition in an already highly concentrated market, where IQVIA supplies technology solutions and data analytics to support pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device products.

It is noteworthy that IQVIA’s predecessor, IMS Health (which merged with Quintiles in 2016 to form IQVIA), was the subject of the 2004 landmark judgment of the CJEU on the limits of the “essential facilities doctrine”. In that case, the Commission examined IMS Health’s refusal to licence its proprietary “brick structure” data format to rivals, a structure considered indispensable for competing in pharmaceutical data markets.

What's next? A glimpse into 2026

Businesses operating in Belgium should expect closer scrutiny of pricing models, public procurement strategies and conduct in digital and essential consumer markets.

Looking ahead, the BCA is expected to continue investing heavily in ex ante tools and guidelines, with a clear focus on sectoral analysis, price formation and sustainability. This confirms a shift towards more preventive competition law policy alongside traditional enforcement work:

• The final report of the BCA’s investigation into sectoral price revision and indexation mechanisms is expected in early 2026.
• In February 2026, the BCA launched a public consultation on new guidance on antitrust compliance in public procurement procedures. Supported by a dedicated internal task force, public procurement is set to remain an important enforcement priority for 2026 and the coming years.

On the enforcement and litigation front, 2026 will continue to feature high-profile cases. The Brussels Court of Appeal is expected to deliver its judgment on Google’s temporary suspension of Proxistore from its DoubleClick AdExchange platform. This closely watched appeal underscores ongoing scrutiny of digital markets and the interface between competition law and commercial disputes.

At the same time, the BCA’s sectoral focus is broadening through recent actions in essential consumer markets. These include the conditional approval of the Delhaize/Delfood retail grocery merger, which requires divestments and behavioural remedies to safeguard local competition.

* Any views or conclusions provided in this blog post are largely based on publicly available information and shall in any case not be ascribed to Linklaters LLP or any of its clients. The authors are very grateful to Camille Swennen for her invaluable help with this post.