Business to business
is nota free-for-all.

Four kinds, listed in Book VI of the Code of Economic Law and void in all circumstances. A clause that binds you irrevocably while the other party's own performance depends on a condition it alone controls. A clause giving one party the right to interpret the contract unilaterally. A clause by which you give up any recourse against the other party in the event of a dispute. And a clause establishing irrebuttably that you knew and accepted terms you had no real chance of seeing before concluding. These do not become valid because the agreement was negotiated or because you are a business rather than a consumer.

Eight, which can be justified but start from the wrong side of the line. Among them: changing the price or the essential characteristics unilaterally without a valid reason, renewing or extending a fixed-term contract without a reasonable notice period, shifting an economic risk onto the other party without consideration, restricting the other party's rights in the event of non-performance, ending the relationship without reasonable notice, excluding liability for one's own fraud or gross negligence or for failure in an essential obligation, limiting the means of proof available, and fixing damages manifestly disproportionate to the loss. Finding one in a contract you are about to sign is a reason to ask about it.

Yes, between undertakings, since the amendment that took effect on 1 February 2022. The contractual payment term may not exceed sixty calendar days and the parties cannot extend it by agreement, which was possible before. Two details matter as much as the headline. Any period for verifying or accepting the goods or services is counted inside the sixty days rather than added to them, so a thirty-day inspection followed by sixty-day payment is not available. And interest runs as of right on late payment without any reminder being necessary, with a fixed sum for recovery costs due on top.

No, and the distinction is kept deliberately sharp because it protects you. What happens here is commercial: reading an agreement, identifying which terms are one-sided or expensive, measuring what a dependence on one customer would cost, and writing down the questions worth asking. Legal advice and representation are reserved to the Bar in Belgium, so the output is a list of points for a lawyer rather than an opinion with our name on it. Clients regularly find that the lawyer's time is shorter and cheaper for having had the commercial work done first.

A prohibition in force since August 2020, enforced by the Belgian Competition Authority, aimed at an undertaking that exploits another's position of economic dependence in a way that affects competition on the Belgian market. It is a genuine remedy and worth knowing about. It is also slow and adversarial, which is why we treat it as a backstop rather than a strategy. The useful work is upstream: knowing what share of your revenue and your margin really sits with one counterparty, deciding what share you are prepared to live with, and changing it on purpose.

No. We build the process and we will tell you plainly where yours leaks: invoices issued late, descriptions that invite a query, nobody owning the chase, escalation that never happens because it was never dated. Doing the chasing itself, or recovering a debt on your behalf, is not what this company does, and a fee based on a percentage of recoveries would give us an interest in how hard you push rather than in whether you get paid.