A frequently heard complaint of in-house lawyers and general practitioners: “This is complicated stuff. It is often counterintuitive and the mechanics of competition law are different from any other field of the law that I know. When I touch it, I have the constant feeling that I am either too strict or too lenient.“
Both EU and national competition law are very specific areas of practice. The law and the caselaw are evolving constantly. In addition, there is a layer of practical expertise and experience that cannot be found in the books. Whenever the uncomfortable feeling expressed in the quote above applies to you, feel free to turn to us. Competition law is our world and we feel like fish in the water.
The Faros team has experience with every type of procedure where competition law may be applied. It has represented companies and the European Commission before the Court of Justice and the General Court in Luxemburg. It handles frequently cases before the European Commission and the Belgian Competition Authority. The team has been given the assignment of coordinating multi-jurisdiction matters to ensure consistency and a streamlined approach, involving even competition authorities situated outside of the EU. Faros lawyers also handle competition law disputes before the Belgian national courts.
The experience of the Faros team spans all aspects of competition law, including cartels, abuse of dominance, all other types of restrictive practices, merger control and State aid. Multiple examples underscore the team’s expertise. Allow us to name just a few of them. Members of the Faros team represented clients in the Commission’s “Trucks” cartel investigation. They handled landmark cases at the European level with regard to matters such as information exchange, predatory pricing, price fixing cartels and distribution. They were active in phase 1 and 2 merger control proceedings. In the field of State aid, they successfully completed the landmark training aid case before the European Commission and challenged the legality of State aid schemes before the Court of Justice. They acted for clients before the Belgian Competition Authority in respect of hub-and-spoke cartels and abuse of dominance cases. And there is so much more.
The partners in charge of competition law at Faros are Frank Wijckmans, Maaike Visser, Emmelie Wijckmans and Karolien Francken.
“Data is the new gold.”, one said. “But what about GDPR?”, another said.
We were among the first to pick up this new field of expertise. Happy to have done so. Not just GDPR, but data protection legislation in general has proven to be a fast moving and highly technical field of practice. We keep track of the legal developments and only need a short and targeted briefing to understand the activities of our clients.
Our team has helped multiple corporate groups to introduce data protection compliance frameworks so as to comply timely with data protection legislation. These groups continue to call upon our team to monitor and ensure compliance with new legislative developments. In a world where personal data have become an important economic asset for companies, data protection legislation gives rise to complex and challenging questions. The members of the Faros team are in such instances a frequently visited port of call.
We stand by our clients in all data protection matters, including strategically important matters such as the representation during legal proceedings before the Belgian Data Protection Authority, at the design stage of new products and services and in case of data breaches.
The partner in charge of our data protection team is Anouk Focquet.
Before: “I was not looking forward to this compliance training. Being in a room or in a video meeting for more than 2 hours with lawyers is not really why I joined our company...”
After: “Actually this was fun. No legal blablabla, but solid and crisp messages with examples from our business and plenty of opportunities to engage in a real discussion. If that is how compliance can be handled, more than happy with it. By the way, I enjoyed the quiz.”
A proper compliance strategy is no luxury. It is an integral part of protecting your business and being ethical about it.
By the same token, compliance programs and trainings can be boring and ineffective. The Faros team has a proven track record of avoiding those risks. The quotes mentioned above are not fictitious. They are real.
Our trainings focus on competition and market practices, data protection and anti-bribery. They are hands-on, interactive and pleasant. No slide presentations with lengthy quotes from laws and cases. Rather, tailor-made challenges and attractive visuals underscoring the important messages.
In addition to our trainings, Faros offers video materials and tailor-made compliance and dawn raid guidelines.
As we all know, the proof of the pudding...
Therefore, try the Faros team. We are more than happy to explain our unique approach further. We are ready to provide a test training so that you can witness yourself the Faros way of ensuring that compliance programs can be both fun and effective.
