The Act of 28 November 2021 on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships within the agricultural and food supply chain: a much more far-reaching legislation than it first seemed

The Belgian Parliament has quietly adopted new legislation likely to turn business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain sector upside down. With a few weeks’ delay, the Directive 2019/633 on unfair trading practices in business-to-business relationships in the agricultural and food supply chain has been transposed in Belgium through the Act of 28 November 2021 (the “Act”), which entered into force on 25 December 2021.

The far-reaching nature of the Act calls for much commentary, not only on the new regime it creates, but also on its interactions with other legislation, such as the Act of 2 August 2002 on combating late payment in commercial transactions (the "Act of 2002"), or the Act of 4 April 2019 amending the Code of Economic Law with regard to abuse of economic dependence, unfair terms and unfair trading practices between undertakings (the "B2B Act").