BELGIUM Law and Practice Contributed by: Valerijus Ostrovskis, Coline Cauvin, Delphine Buyle and Yapa Thepkanjana, ACQUIS
of Know Your Customer (KYC)/Know Your Transac - tion). In Belgium, as in most EU member states, the existence of a robust internal compliance programme could be an argument in favour of mitigating the liabil - ity of a company being prosecuted; however, there is no general rule guaranteeing reduction of the penalty. The law transposing EU Directive 2024/1226, entering into force on 1 September 2026, will introduce mitigat - ing circumstances in the case of criminal enforcement proceedings. Mitigating circumstances that can be taken into account by the Belgian courts include the provision of information and evidence which the com - petent authorities could not have obtained otherwise. For administrative enforcement proceedings, the law transposing EU Directive 2024/1226 requires that the competent administrative authority determines the amount of the administrative fine taking into account all relevant circumstances, including, among oth - er factors, the seriousness and the duration of the infringements, the degree of responsibility, their finan - cial capacity, and the degree of co-operation with the competent authorities, etc. Some of these circum - stances may therefore have a mitigating effect on the amount of the fine, although the law does not formally characterise them as mitigating circumstances. 2.2.6 Strict Liability In Belgium, all EU sanctions violations constitute a “regulatory offence” under the provisions of the Law of 13 May 2003 and thus are subject to strict liabil - ity standards under general criminal law principles. This qualification should, however, be read together with the EU sanctions regulations themselves. Certain provisions, including in the Russia sanctions regula - tions, limit liability where the operator did not intend to infringe EU sanctions, or did not know, and had no reasonable cause to suspect, that its conduct would infringe the applicable EU sanctions.
tion (EU) No 833/2014) and are often subject to spe - cific deadlines. The main national competent authorities for sanc - tions derogation licences are FPS Finance for financial sanctions (including asset freezes) and FPS Economy for economic sanctions. FPS Finance does issue der - ogation licences for asset freezes provided that the application complies with the conditions. 2.3.2 Provision of Legal Services In Belgium as well as in the EU, the provision of legal services to designated persons or entities is generally prohibited – as is receiving payments for such servic - es from such persons and entities. Although Belgium does not operate a general-licence system, EU sanc - tions regulations generally provide that national com - petent authorities of the member states may authorise the release of funds or the making available of cer - tain frozen funds or economic resources to or from designated persons for reasonable legal expenses. Accordingly, a licence allowing the compensation of legal services is required on a case-by-case basis. Separately, under EU sanctions against Russia, it is prohibited to provide certain legal advisory services to the Russian government and to legal persons, entities or bodies established in Russia. However, there is an exemption for services that are strictly necessary for the exercise of the right of defence in judicial proceedings and the right to an effective legal remedy under Article 5n (5) of Council Regulation (EU) No 833/2014. Additionally, Article 5n (6) of Council Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 provides for an exemption to the prohibition to provide services where the services are strictly necessary to ensure access to judicial, administrative or arbitral proceed - ings in an EU member state, as well as for the recog - nition or enforcement of a judgment or an arbitration award rendered in an EU member state – provided that such provision of services is consistent with the objectives of this EU regulation and Council Regula - tion (EU) No 269/2014. Therefore, Council Regulation (EU) No 833/2014 excludes certain services from the scope of the legal advisory services prohibition. Where a service falls
2.3 Licensing 2.3.1 Derogation
The EU’s sanctions regulations provide for deroga - tions that may be granted by the national competent authorities “under such conditions as they deem appropriate”. The specific grounds are provided in the respective sanctions regulations (eg, Council Regula -
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