Insights

On September 9, 2026, the European Commission proposed a new Public Procurement Act that would fundamentally change the way that public procurement is regulated across the EU. In this alert we look at what changes have been proposed, and discuss how those changes would affect companies – whether EU-based or not — that wish to participate in European public procurement.  

In recent years, there has been a wave of new legislation impacting contracts and contractual terms. The Belgian legislator is gradually adopting the different Books of the Belgian Civil Code, and the Belgian Code of Economic Law has been updated several times. These changes affect the way contract terms need to be drafted, not only between companies but also with consumers. 

Until recently, Belgian law did not have a general regulatory framework for internal investigations. Companies wishing to conduct an investigation had to navigate a fragmented set of rules that covered general principles and, to a limited extent, privacy and employee rights. The application of these rules to internal investigations was not clear, and it was therefore often difficult to put the rules into practice. This legal vacuum created significant risks, both for the integrity of the investigation itself and for the admissibility of any evidence gathered. 

The wait is over. As of today, manufacturers of connected products (both hardware and software) must comply with the Cyber Resilience Act’s (“CRA”) vulnerability and incident reporting obligations. The CRA’s Single Reporting Platform (“SRP”), operated by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (“ENISA”), is now the EU-wide gateway through which those notifications must flow.

On 3 September 2026, the European Commission adopted new Guidelines on the application of Article 102 TFEU to abusive exclusionary conduct by dominant undertakings. The Guidelines follow a public consultation on a draft published in August 2024 and reflect substantial stakeholder feedback. They replace the Commission's 2008 Guidance on enforcement priorities (which ceases to apply 30 days after publication of the new guidelines in the Official Journal) and represent the most significant reset of the Commission's Article 102 enforcement framework in nearly two decades. The Commission's stated aim is to set out principles and operational guidance, enhance legal certainty, and help companies self-assess their exclusionary-abuse risk.

English law has long treated the choice between terminating for repudiatory breach and exercising a contractual termination right as consequential. Under the Financings[1] causation principle, a party exercising a contractual right for a non-repudiatory breach could recover losses accrued to the date of termination — but nothing more. Loss of bargain was out of reach unless the breach went to the root of the contract. A practical workaround, confirmed in Lombard,[2] was to designate the relevant obligation as a condition, elevating any breach to repudiatory status, but that device carries significant strategic risk if the termination is later found to have been wrongful.

The EU’s steel safeguard under Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/159 expired on 30 June 2026 and has been replaced by a new permanent instrument — the EU Steel Overcapacity Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2026/1384) (the Regulation”). It imposes tariff-rate quotas and an out-of-quota duty, similarly to the steel safeguard measures that expired. The out-of-quota duty has been raised from 25% to 50% to minimize the risk of trade diversion. The Regulation reduces duty-free imports of 26 categories of steel products into the EU by an average of 47% compared with the quotas under the until recently applicable safeguard measures.

From June 19, 2026, all online traders active within the EU are required to provide a “withdrawal button” on their websites and apps. The introduction of this withdrawal button represents a significant shift in the online consumer cancellation landscape. In this alert, we provide an overview of what this requirement means in practice and why compliance is so important.

The EU Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is an EU product cybersecurity law for connected products (formally, “products with digital elements” under the CRA) commercialized in the EU; it entered into force on 10 December 2024, with direct application across the EU. Full application begins 11 December 2027, but one of its most operationally demanding provisions takes effect in just under 100 days, on 11 September 2026: the mandatory vulnerability and incident reporting under Article 14 CRA.

On June 8, 2026, a new EU regulation was adopted to replace the 2019 Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Screening Regulation. The new regulation requires all Member States to establish a screening mechanism for inbound FDI. It also defines a mandatory minimum sectoral scope, expands coverage to investments by foreign investors’ EU subsidiaries, and improves coordination between Member States and the Commission.

Three years have passed since the EU Pay Transparency Directive ("PTD") came into existence, and it now appears highly likely that very few EU Member States will have fully transposed its provisions into national law by the 7 June 2026 deadline.  For employers operating across the EU, this creates a deeply uncomfortable question: what are your obligations right now?

In a judgment that will have direct and immediate consequences, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has clarified that for all competition damages actions brought after 26 December 2014, interest runs from the date on which the harm occurred. The ruling addressed two important questions: (1) whether national provisions implementing Article 3(2) of the EU Damages Directive — which requires interest to run from the date harm occurred —apply to cases in which the harm preceded the adoption of those provisions; and (2) how the date of harm should be determined in cartel cases involving the purchase of goods at inflated prices.

On 30 April 2026, the European Commission published draft merger guidelines that will replace both the 2004 Horizontal Merger Guidelines and the 2008 Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines, consolidating them into a single analytical framework.

In our ninth alert in this EU Pharma Package Series, we discussed the proposals of the Commission, Council, and Parliament with respect to advertising of medicinal products.

The ICCU is poised to become one of the most significant international compensation mechanisms of this generation. Crowell & Moring has the experience to help with your claim.

On 29 April 2026, the European Commission adopted the Middle East Crisis Temporary State Aid Framework (METSAF), a temporary framework relaxing the conditions under which EU Member States can support companies in sectors particularly affected by fuel, fertilizer, and electricity price surges driven by the Middle East crisis.

The EU AI Act defines ‘AI literacy’ as the skills, knowledge and understanding to enable the informed use and operation of AI systems and increase awareness of the opportunities, risks and possible harm that AI systems may present — with the ultimate purpose being to ensure that staff (and other relevant individuals) are able to take informed decisions in relation to AI, such as how to interpret AI output and decision-making processes and their impact on natural persons.

In our eighth alert in this EU Pharma Package Series, we took a “detour” to discuss the interplay between the measures proposed in the Pharma Package and those contained in other important EU initiatives such as the proposed Critical Medicines Act (CMA), and the Medicinal Countermeasures and EU Stockpiling Strategies.

The FDA and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) (jointly with the European Commission and Heads of Medicines Agencies) each have issued or updated their respective guidance addressing decentralized clinical trials (DCT), i.e., clinical trials that include trial-related activities conducted at locations other than the traditional investigative site.

The EU has adopted its 20th package of sanctions in connection with Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine, resolving a prolonged internal political deadlock that had been caused by vetoes from Hungary and Slovakia. The package amends Regulations 833/2014, 269/2014, and 765/2006 and the respective Council Decisions and Implementing Regulations. The texts entered into force on 24 April 2026. They are available through this link.