Whatever your legal concern or needs may be, whether it be a multi-million euros business sale, a complex commercial transaction, an unavoidable litigation matter or the drafting of a contract, we are here to advise and support you and handle all aspects of your legal matter.

Expertise

Liberius’ lawyers provide their clients with an actual return on their investment in high-level legal advice. They are very familiar with the monumental variety of challenges faced by lenders and borrowers in today’s vibrant market and know how to move and operate effectively in order to provide efficient and valuable services to our clients in Belgium and abroad, among whom we count leading financial institutions and private organisations across various industries.

This variety of experience across our diverse client base and our past assistance on all sides and aspects of financial transactions enables our lawyers to offer value and create successful commercial strategies and solutions, helping to structure and close sophisticated financing transactions across the world.

Our lawyers advise on a myriad of topics, including the complexity of applicable regulations and restrictions relevant to our clients’ lending or borrowing and the increasing complexity of cross-border transactions requiring execution in multiple jurisdictions.

Our practice has developed a particular expertise in the field of specialty lending, assisting lenders to underwrite the underlying intrinsic values of their borrowers’ businesses by creatively investing in a broad spectrum of credit risk, all whilst harnessing the latest technologies, strongly reducing the overall costs of these transactions.

Our team’s strong expertise covers:

  • financing of acquisitions, projects, trade & export, real estate and construction
  • financial services laws and regulations
  • structured and leveraged finance
  • specialty lending, alternative lending and securitization
  • private equity and venture capital
  • structuring and restructuring of investment funds
  • alternative financing platforms, start-up funds, crowdfunding
  • fund raising and investment activities
  • restructuring and insolvency

Conducting business in today’s fast-moving society means that having your commercial arrangements well-structured and well-documented is absolutely essential. For many Belgian and multinationals companies, as well as start-ups, Liberius is often the firm of choice to advise on their commercial legal needs. To offer the right protect to the essence of every business, our lawyers bring in-depth business and commercial sense to the table, as well as a track record of complex negotiations and a wealth of industry knowledge.

Well-structured deals bring invaluable peace of mind and by correctly tackling the issues from the start, misunderstandings can be avoided in the longer term. Our lawyers possess an astute understanding of the laws and employ great attention to detail in preparing and assessing any form of commercial contract. Across a broad number of sectors, we advise and prepare companies on consistency in making optimal choices and maximising their advantages, thereby avoiding risks where possible. Whatever the scale and scope of your contract, our lawyers strive for realistic, efficient and affordable solutions.

Our lawyers’ experience and skills include the following aspects of commercial law and specific contracts

  • Anti-bribery compliance
  • Collaboration agreements
  • Commercial due diligence
  • Commission and introduction agreements
  • Confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements
  • Consultancy agreements
  • Consumer rights
  • Data protection and privacy issues
  • Distribution Agreements
  • Equipment leasing and hire purchase
  • Event management agreements
  • Exploitation agreements
  • Framing agreements
  • Franchising
  • General contractual issues
  • Heads of terms/ memoranda of understanding
  • Joint venture agreements
  • Lease, hire and maintenance agreements
  • Licence agreements
  • Logistics agreements
  • Manufacture, purchase and supply
  • Option agreements
  • Outsourcing
  • Partnership agreements
  • Reseller agreements
  • Terms of business, terms of trade, terms and conditions

Whether they are buying, selling, starting or investing in a company, Liberius advises its clients on all legal aspects of these corporate transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, restructurings and venture capital.

Our team has advised hundreds of clients on every step on the way of their domestic and cross-border transactions, thereby gaining the experience and expertise so critical to helping our clients to mitigate their risks and achieving their goals. How a transaction is structured has

enormous implications in both the short and the long term and clever, efficient solutions minimise your risks and maximise your returns. Our clear and informed guidance will always help you make the best decisions.

Whether your transaction involves a very simple acquisition or constitutes a complex cross-border deal in a high-growth market, we will give it the same level of focus, expertise and care. We will ensure no aspect of the process gets overlooked, whether its adequate due diligence, assessing compliance or reputational risk, merger clearance or the right deal timetable. The way we approach transactions demonstrates our experience.

Going beyond the mere preparing and negotiating of legal documentation, we assist our clients from A to Z on their transactions, including the strategic preparation, choice of approach, structural aspects, and – very importantly – the post-transaction integration of the acquired business, as many of the challenges only begin once the deal is closed.

  • M&A and Corporate Transactions: advise on sale and transfer agreements (share or asset deals), shareholders agreements and related documentation like management and loan agreements. In addition, we advise on legal structuring, due diligence, review of related notarial documentation and coordination of the entire transaction.
  • Corporate restructurings: since decades our team of problem-solvers have advised on executing the most complex domestic and cross-border restructuring and recovery solutions. This experience enables us to address situations understanding both the short-term needs as well as long-term objectives of our clients.
  • Venture Capital, Private Equity and Strategic Investments: advise on investment rounds for start-ups, innovative entrepreneurs and growth companies on the one hand, and venture capital funds and other private capital sources that invest in them on the other hand.
  • Corporate governance: advise on management structures, division of responsibilities and authorities, including drafting of authority matrixes, liability management, corporate governance policies, governance frameworks, disclosure, internal control and relationship with shareholders and other stakeholders. We also advise on setting up and maintaining a practical system for governance related documentation, managing the operational issues of day-to-day business and legal audits

Further to this we can advise you on such diverse matters as

  • Company formation and incorporation
  • Preparing fund documentation for investors and fund sponsors
  • Assisting in shareholders’ disputes
  • White collar crime
  • Mezzanine funding
  • Post-acquisition litigation

We have an established network of tax advisors, civil-law notaries and other specialists in order to provide clients with a full range of legal advice. As such our corporate team can help you to

minimize the tax risks resulting from transfer pricing, and to optimize the use of your global resources.

Most of our lawyers have studied, trained worked and lived abroad, often in common law jurisdictions, with the world’s top firms. This gives our team a considerable overreaching advantage in understanding the differences in approaches between various jurisdictions and legal systems. Some of our lawyers are qualified in multiple jurisdictions.

This experience and valuable knowledge is put at your disposal whenever you are looking to export your business from Belgium to a different country, or the other way round.

We will also often have a team member who can advise in the local language. For more details please check our international desks page.

In this day and age, your organisation needs a robust culture of privacy compliance to be successful. Privacy rights are top of mind for media, customers and investors alike. The negative fall-out of failure to comply with GDPR or national privacy laws can be significant. For many companies, privacy compliance is stressful and work-heavy. But, as you work through those long hours reading through the privacy laws and building out your process, don’t forget the purpose behind the law: to provide better, more secure, more transparent experiences for you and your customers.

Our data protection specialists use their thorough grasp of the law and understanding of the individual needs of our clients to deliver a strategy that ensures their compliance, now and in the future.

We advise companies of all sizes on data protection and privacy issues, from start-ups to large corporate entities across most sectors. Whether you require short-term crisis management assistance or a global program tailored to satisfy data protection authorities, our clients receive pragmatic, practical and cost-effective solutions. We also have specialist lawyers who are certified to act as data protection officers and IAPP accredited privacy professionals who can advise on a wide range of data protection issues:

  • Access rights for data subjects
  • Data breach response plans
  • Privacy in clinical trials
  • Camera’s (drones, CCTV) and privacy
  • Children-related privacy issues
  • Compliance programs and trainings
  • Employee Related Data Issues
  • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
  • International transfers of data
  • Marketing issues
  • Policies and privacy notices
  • Data retention programs
  • Cybersecurity

In today’s fast-paced business environment, disputes are becoming more frequent and complex. Our clients’ continued growth and entering into new markets, with tighter regulations, scrutiny, higher accountability and intense competition, leads to higher costs and greater liability, making that disputes are always best avoided where possible, and effectively and efficiently resolved if and when they arise.

We advise and help our clients through the entire lifecycle of their business and transactions, understanding their environment and culture and guiding them where feasible to minimize their exposure to risk and disputes across various industries.

If a dispute has become unavoidable, we guide our clients through any pre-contentious negotiations and help them to choose the optimal dispute resolution option for the situation at hand, providing expert advice at every step of the process. These options include mediation, litigation, international arbitration and alternative dispute resolution.

Our dispute resolution lawyers have broad regulatory expertise and expert insights into the specifics and challenges of complex cases, with a track record in finding creative ways to resolve them. Often this will be by way of out-of-court settlement, taking into consideration our client’s legal, financial and business objectives.

The team members are noted for their expertise in handling arbitration, in particular in the area of commercial disputes, competition and regulatory, damage claims, IT and IP, with several team members being member of CEPANI, the Belgian Centre for Arbitration and Mediation.

Employment is constantly one of the fastest-changing areas of law. Legislation is always developing rapidly, and employment claims and compensation payments continue to soar. Detailed knowledge and in-depth expertise are essential to ensure businesses and individuals alike obtain efficient and workable advice.

The Liberius team can deal with any kind of employment-related or immigration issue. We ensure that companies have the correct documentation in place to reduce risk and improve employee efficiency, and we advise on issues from redundancy to disciplinary matters and grievances, including defending organisations in employment tribunals.

We equally help individuals on their own employment rights, regularly scrutinising contracts and giving guidance on tax implications. We also offer proactive solutions on any form of employment dispute, all the way to the prosecution of claims in employment tribunals.

Most businesses are directly or indirectly affected by EU Law. Not getting your legal compliance right can result in hefty penalties and other restrictions. Liberius lawyers are well versed in all aspects of EU regulatory and thoroughly understand the workings of the regulating authorities. As such we can ensure your organisation remains fully compliant.

We can advise you on such diverse matters as

  • Compliance
  • Horizon 2020 & Horizon EU Tenders & Contracting
  • Labelling
  • Sector specific queries

Correctly applied, competition law can create important strategic and commercial advantages. We can assist in challenging the anti-competitive behaviour of other businesses. Our lawyers have advised public and private sector clients across a number of diverse sectors, so our industry knowledge and credibility will ensure we grasp the issue at hand and counsel you towards the very best outcome.

We can advise you on such diverse matters as

  • Abuse of a dominant market position
  • Cartels
  • Competition law issues relating to distribution, supply, joint ventures and IP licensing
  • Sustainability agreements
  • Complaints against competitors and suppliers
  • Investigations by UK and EU competition authorities & dawn raids
  • Merger control
  • State Aid
  • Standardisation agreements
  • Industry-specific regulations (travel, telecoms, pharma & healthcare)

Whether we’re talking copyright, trademarks, trade secrets, domains or know-how and goodwill, intellectual property is often a valuable asset of any business, big or small, and there’s often huge challenges in properly managing, securing, growing and protecting this intellectual property.

Technological advancements have enabled the infringement of IP rights to become more sophisticated, and intellectual property has become a main driver of mergers and acquisitions, which makes the proper structuring and protection of these valuable assets even more important.

We assist and advise our clients on all aspects of the acquisition, protection, enforcement and exploitation of their IP rights, covering the full scope of IP services such as brand management, brand enforcement, patent litigation, patent prosecution, copyright, IP litigation, trade secrets, IP transactions and marketing, advertising and promotions.

A strong understanding of IP rights is paramount and our lawyers approach IP management as a strategic issue, assisting clients across industries, including the automotive, luxury and fashion, fast moving consumer goods, financial services, technology, media and entertainment, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals, life sciences and healthcare industries.

  • Assignment of intellectual property rights
  • Audits of intellectual property rights
  • Branding issues
  • Copyright and database rights
  • Designs
  • Dispute resolution
  • Exploitation arrangements
  • Patents
  • Protection of confidential information
  • Trade marks and branding

Our tax experts possess the experience, knowledge and foresight to add considerable value to your business dealings and transactions, whether it be investing in a business, reviewing remuneration structures or taking your business abroad.

We advise owners of businesses, individuals and investors from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists and business angels.

Our tax experts’ technical expertise is combined with a commercial and responsive approach to all transactions. Understanding the individual requirements of each situation allows the team to offer pragmatic and practical advice, proven to future-proof each transaction. Their ability to remain in touch with the constant changes in the law also ensures their solutions are consistently innovative and continue to get the best possible results for our clients.

Our tax experts possess the experience, knowledge and foresight to add considerable value to your business dealings and transactions, whether it be investing in a business, reviewing remuneration structures or taking your business abroad.

We advise owners of businesses, individuals and investors from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists and business angels.

Our tax experts’ technical expertise is combined with a commercial and responsive approach to all transactions. Understanding the individual requirements of each situation allows the team to offer pragmatic and practical advice, proven to future-proof each transaction. Their ability to remain in touch with the constant changes in the law also ensures their solutions are consistently innovative and continue to get the best possible results for our clients.