Corporate law reform
Vanuit de Wetstraat – Hervorming Ondernemingsrecht
De Wet houdende hervorming van het Ondernemingsrecht werd op 15 april 2018 in het Belgisch Staatsblad gepubliceerd en treedt in werking vanaf 1 november 2018. Daardoor komen er een aantal wijzigingen in het Burgerlijk Wetboek, het Gerechtelijk Wetboek, het Wetboek Economisch Recht (WER), het Wetboek van Vennootschappen en het Wetboek van Koophandel.
The main elements
Scope
- The concepts ‘trader’ and ‘merchant’ disappear and, unless otherwise specified, are replaced in all laws by the more general name ‘company’.
Within the WER, it falls under the term ‘enterprise’:
- Any natural person who pursues a professional activity independently;
- Any legal person other than the State;
- Any other organization without legal personality.
This also implies that associations, etc. without legal personality, can become ‘accountable companies’.
- Book XIV (Market Practices and Consumer Protection for Professionals) is deleted in the WER because in future these will be ‘enterprises’ covered by Book VI (Market Practices and Consumer Protection).
- The Code of Commerce disappears.
- The Commercial Court becomes a Corporate Court.
- The terms ‘commercial undertaking’, ‘artisan company’ and ‘non-commercial undertaking’ are deleted and henceforth referred to as a ‘Registered Undertaking’.
- Once the law has entered into force, any undertaking that has not yet registered and which is now obliged to register must be registered within a period of six months.
Would you like to examine the entire law? Then you’ll find it here.
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