Insights

Last week, artificial intelligence companies won two significant copyright infringement lawsuits brought by copyright holders, marking an important milestone in the development of the law around AI. These decisions – Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta (decided on June 23 and 25, 2025, respectively), along with a February 2025 decision in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS Intelligence – suggest that AI companies have plausible defenses to the intellectual property claims that have dogged them since generative AI technologies became widely available several years ago. Whether AI companies can, in all cases, successfully assert that their use of copyrighted content is “fair” will depend on their circumstances and further development of the law by the courts and Congress.

On June 4, 2025, after nearly two years of intense debate and negotiation between the 27 EU Member States, the Council of the European Union adopted its position on the proposed overhaul of the EU general pharmaceutical legislative framework known as the new Pharma Package.

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 our new Belgian Civil Code, such as Book VI. Last February, a new proposal for Book VII on special contracts, including sale and loan agreements was submitted. Additionally, the Belgian Code of Economic Law has been updated several times, impacting the drafting of contracts and of contractual terms, not only between companies but also with consumers.

Under its new leadership, the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA) has stepped up its enforcement activities and launched a number of initiatives and investigations that put it at the forefront of competition law developments in the European Union.

On 8 May 2025, the European Commission published new lists of products potentially subject to EU rebalancing measures in retaliation to U.S. tariffs. The proposed measures would apply if EU-U.S. trade negotiations fail. They are designed to stand alongside previously adopted EU countermeasures, which are currently suspended until 14 July 2025.

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 our new Belgian Civil Code. Last February, a new proposal for Book VII on special contracts, including sale and loan agreements was submitted. Additionally, the Belgian Code of Economic Law has been updated several times, impacting the drafting of contracts and of contractual terms, not only between companies but also with consumers.

On February 26, the European Commission presented its Clean Industrial Deal (CID). As a follow-up to the European Green Deal, the CID aims to strengthen the competitiveness of European industry while at the same time accelerating the decarbonization of the economy.

On March 5, 2025, the European Commission presented a comprehensive Action Plan to boost the global competitiveness of the European Union’s automotive industry and support its transition to zero-emission, connected, and automated vehicles.

On 26 February 2025, the Commission proposed a sustainability simplifications package, commonly referred to as the Omnibus package. Among the sustainability reporting and due diligence provisions, the Omnibus package would also bring about changes to the EU’s unilateral environmental measure, the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). CBAM entered into application in its transitional phase in October 2023 and is now halfway towards its definitive implementation. The proposed deregulation brings about improvements in several CBAM areas, including scope, and reporting and procedural requirements. In this alert, we outline those suggested amendments that are likely to be of most importance to businesses involved in trading in CBAM goods.

As they have on each previous anniversary, the EU and UK released new sanctions against Russia on February 24, 2025, to mark the three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. For the first time, the United States did not do the same, electing to issue a limited set of Iran-related sanctions on the anniversary instead. The EU package was more fulsome than the UK package, including new port and airport restrictions, additional trade restrictions (including an aluminium ban), enhanced military end-user restrictions, and additional asset freezes and vessel designations.

After months of negotiations, Belgium’s new federal government has reached an agreement introducing significant changes to labor law, employment flexibility, and social security. These reforms aim to boost employment rates, simplify regulations, and reduce labor costs for employers.  

On October 4, 2024, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) ruled in the Diarra case that the transfer rules of the Fédération Internationale Football Association (FIFA) regarding the termination of player contracts without just cause were incompatible with EU internal market and competition laws. Following this landmark ruling, FIFA published temporary changes to its transfer rules on December 23, 2024. This judgment could have a significant impact on the economic model for football in Europe, and on the balance of power both between clubs, and between clubs and their players.

Since Donald Trump’s election to a second term as President of the United States, the possibility of U.S. trade measures against the European Union became more tangible. The new administration is reportedly considering imposing sanctions on certain EU Member States and imposing additional tariffs on EU exports to the U.S.

The U.S. Copyright Office has released Part 2 of its Report on the legal and policy issues related to copyright and artificial intelligence (AI). This part of the Report, issued on January 29, 2025, focuses on the copyrightability of outputs created using generative AI. Overall, the Copyright Office concludes that existing law is sufficient to resolve questions of AI usage in copyrighted works, and sufficient human contributions to AI-generated outputs that would constitute authorship will be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. The Office declined to support a separate copyright registration analysis for AI works, but provided new examples of how using AI as a tool could support sufficient authorship for copyrightability.

Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) 32bis applies in Belgium in the event of a transfer of undertakings. It establishes the legal framework that protects employees’ rights during such a transfer.

On 23 October 2024, the European Parliament adopted Directive (EU) 2024/2831 (“the Directive”), aimed at improving conditions for individuals working for digital platforms.  The Directive introduces comprehensive measures to: address the employment status of digital platform workers, ensure transparency and fairness in algorithmic management, and strengthen the protection of personal data. The Directive came into force on 1 December 2024, and Member States are required to adopt the necessary measures for transposition into national law by 2 December 2026.

Just over a year ago, the notification obligations under the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) became applicable. Since then, M&A transactions and bids for government contracts above certain thresholds must be notified to the European Commission. Pending the Commission’s review, the transaction cannot be completed, or the contract cannot be awarded. What lessons can be learned from the application of the FSR to date? Has the FSR proved to be an effective tool in leveling the playing field, or has its main effect been to burden companies with red tape, at the risk of discouraging investment in Europe?

There is currently a deluge of new EU law being finalized and adopted – particularly on environmental and sustainability issues. At times it may seem overwhelming – with certain new EU laws being overlooked.  However, when serious environmental problems come to light within companies – the first major concern is normally criminal liability. That includes potential criminal liability of the company itself, but also of the CEO, Board Members and other persons leading it. With that in mind – top of a company’s ‘to-do’ list should be ensuring compliance with the new EU Environmental Crime Directive.

On September 3, 2024, the EU Court of Justice overturned the first-instance judgment of the EU General Court, which had held that the European Commission could review transactions that fall below EU and Member States' merger control thresholds through referrals by national competition authorities under Article 22 of the EU Merger Regulation (Case C-611/22 P, Illumina v Commission).

Cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, soya, wood, rubber?  Do you sell any of these commodities? Do you sell any products derived, containing or using any of these commodities? Are there any companies in your supply chain which sell or use these commodities, or derivative products?  Do you (or others in your supply chain) sell products in the EU/EEA, or export products from the EU/EEA?  If so, you – and your supply chain – must likely comply with the Deforestation Regulation.[1] And getting ready is no easy feat – even despite the recent actions to postpone some of the application deadlines of concern.