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On 10 April 2014 two new (complementary) acts were adopted in Belgium that amend the Criminal Code in order to protect minors against solicitation for sexual purposes through ICT (information and communication technologies) ‘grooming’, on the one hand, and ‘cyberluring’ (‘cyberlokken’), on the other hand. The first act introduces a new article 377quater in the Criminal Code, which criminalises the proposal, through information and communication technologies, of an adult to meet a child who has not reached the age of 16, for the purpose of committing any of the offences established in the sections...

Since 2010, Belgian French-language newspaper publishers have been in dispute with the Belgian public service broadcaster RTBF, which they accuse of developing its online activities, more specifically by publishing written content on its website in addition to the audiovisual content that forms part of its public broadcasting remit. The newspaper publishers claim that this written content creates unfair competition, especially as it benefits from public funding in the form of the annual subsidy granted to the RTBF by the French Community of Belgium. The publishers have brought three legal actions...

On 18 July 2013, the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) dismissed the appeals made by the Union des associations européennes de football (UEFA) and the Federation internationale de football association (FIFA) to set aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union in the case T-55/08 UEFA v. Commission [2011] and the case T-385/07 FIFA v. Commission [2011] (see IRIS 2011-3/3). The Grand Chamber upheld the decisions of the General Court and the European Commission regarding the compatibility with Community law of measures taken by the UK and Belgium on...

On 28 February 2013, during a news programme on RTBF, the French public broadcaster in Belgium, a news report was shown regarding an upcoming episode of RTBF’s programme “The Voice Belgique”. According to the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (audiovisual regulatory body- CSA) this report infringed Article 14, § 1 of the décret coordonné sur les services de médias audiovisuels (the Broadcasting Act) requiring that commercial communication must be readily recognizable as such. The CSA also argued that the report was in breach of Article 18, § 3 of the Act which prohibits the inclusion of self-promotion...

During the programme Café Corsari on één, a channel of the Flemish public broadcaster VRT, Seppe Smits, a snowboarder, was interviewed about the Snowboard World Cup in Antwerp. Seppe Smits was wearing a cap with the logo of his sponsor, Red Bull, and a t-shirt bearing the brand of another sponsor, Burton. During the interview with Seppe Smits and during two interviews with other guests, the Red Bull logo and the Burton brand were displayed several times. According to Vlaamse Regulator voor de Media (Flemish Media Regulator - VRM), this practice infringes Article 100, § 1, 3° Mediadecreet (Flemish...