Federations and competition law - Toolbook

Karolien Francken - Faros, 2026, 92 p.

Federations play an important role in society. They bring undertakings together, provide a platform for dialogue and knowledge exchange, and represent the interests of their sector. Precisely because federations bring competitors together, it is essential that they pay particular attention to compliance with competition law.

The aim of this Toolbook is to help federations and their members better understand and assess competition law risks, but above all to structurally embed compliance within the organisation’s day-to-day operations and culture.

Distribution Agreements (2nd edition)

Frank Wijckmans - Filip Tuytschaever - Minos van Joolingen - Sophia Wittkämper - Wolters Kluwer, 2025, 760 p.

Building on previous editions, this book guides both practitioners and academics through the complex world of competition law regarding distribution agreements. With a combination of in-depth analysis and practical applicability, it offers a clear overview of the European block exemption (Regulation 2022/720) and self-assessment outside the safe zone of the block exemption.

A handy roadmap points the way through the regulations, while numerous practical examples bring sometimes abstract legal concepts to life. The specific rules for the motor vehicle sector (such as Regulation 461/2010) are also covered in detail.

Finally, separate chapters provide an overview of Belgian and Dutch legal rules concerning distribution agreements – a valuable addition for those active in these legal areas.

Thus, the book serves as an indispensable guide for everyone working with distribution agreements.

Merger Control - Toolbook

Faros - Faros, 2025, 191 p.

Competition law contains specific rules regarding the assessment of concentrations. The concept of concentrations encompasses a broad range of transactions typically encountered in the M&A world. These include acquisitions through share or asset deals, as well as the creation of certain types of joint ventures.

Where such transactions result in a change of control and exceed certain quantitative thresholds (generally linked to turnover figures), they must be notified to the competent competition authority. This Toolbook focuses primarily on notifications to the Belgian Competition Authority and the European Commission.

Vertical Agreements in EU Competition Law (4th edition)

Frank Wijckmans - Filip Tuytschaever - Oxford University Press, 2025, 569 p.

This book is the 4th edition of our monograph on Vertical Agreements in EU Competition Law. It focuses on the competition law regime applicable to vertical agreements under Regulation 2022/720, Regulation 461/2010, and the accompanying guidelines. It also offers guidance on the self-assessment of vertical agreements outside the safe harbour of the general or motor vehicles block exemption regulations and addresses more general competition law themes, which are of interest outside the context of vertical agreements, so as to broaden the use of this book.

The book combines academic research and analysis with practical insights, in order to help competition law practitioners navigate through the competition law regime applicable to vertical agreements. In addition to EU case law, this book includes many practical examples from our personal experience and from national enforcement practice.

Like the 3rd edition, this book is the centrepiece of a European family of books. It will be accompanied by national editions, each of which holds a local language version of this book as well as a chapter on the national competition and business law practice on vertical agreements.

Bos door de Bomen - Forest for the Trees (2nd edition) (Dutch)

Frank Wijckmans - Emmelie Wijckmans - Filip Tuytschaever - Herlinde Burez - LeA Publishers, 2025, 423 p.

This second edition of “Bos door de Bomen (Forst for the Trees)” brings, in a similar fashion as the first edition, competition law as closely as possible to anyone interested in this field of the law. All relevant aspects of competition law are addressed in an accessible manner and linked to practical examples and examples stemming from the caselaw.

Emmelie Wijckmans, one of the authors, commented: “The speed with which important developments occurred since the first edition made such a new edition truly necessary. With the entry into force of three important new block exemption regulations and two sets of fresh Commission guidelines major parts required a substantial overhaul. In addition, new caselaw merited appropriate attention. We hope that this second edition finds its way to the desks of many practitioners”.

Horizontal agreements - Block exemptions & Horizontal Guidelines - Toolbook

Emmelie Wijckmans - Frank Wijckmans - Maaike Visser - Karolien Francken - Annemie Van De Vliet - Morgane Smets - LeA Publishers, 2023, 328 p.

This first part of the Toolbook (p. 1 – 103) offers the practitioner a practical introduction to the world of competition law applied to horizontal agreements. It does so in a practice-oriented Q&A format.

The general framework of analysis is addressed and then each of the classic types of horizontal agreements is presented. These types include research and development agreements, production agreements, purchasing agreements, commercialization agreements, bidding consortia, information exchange, standardization agreements, standard terms and sustainability agreements. The Q&A format ensures that the topics are split into digestible parts offering each time a clear answer to a clear question.

The second part of the Toolbook includes the full text of the relevant block exemption regulations (applicable to research and development, and specialization in production respectively) and the full text of the 2023 Horizontal Guidelines.

The Toolbook ends with a handy index that cross-references to the paragraphs of the Q&A contained in the first part.

Vertical Block Exemption Regulation - Toolbook

Frank Wijckmans - Karolien Francken - LeA Publishers, 2022, 123 p.

The first part of the Toolbook (p. 1-35) guides the reader through the current regime on vertical agreements based on a Q&A. The aim is to render this field of competition law as accessible as possible for practitioners.

The second part consists of the texts of Regulation 2022/720, the Vertical Guidelines and the UK Competition Act 1998 (Vertical Agreements Block Exemption) Order 2022. In all these texts key words are highlighted to make their use easier.

The third part consists of an index with cross-references to the first part of the Toolbook.