Public affairs and legal consultation
Before a law becomes law, politicians do a lot of talking.
And in their conversations, there is a lot of room to influence the
direction that the law eventually takes.
Similarly, the laws adopted often establish regulatory
procedures affecting certain products and those procedures involve
committees, government departments and industry associations.
Those procedures also offer affected parties the opportunity to
influence the overall process.
Our service
Our Brussels office is ideally placed and well practised at
influencing the adoption of laws and regulatory
procedures.
Our lawyers, and technical consultants, can assist you in
analysing and interpreting proposed legislation and/or regulatory
procedures to establish their effect; drafting position papers
targeted at particular audiences; tracking legislative and policy
developments; and organising and facilitating meetings with civil
servants/parliamentarians.
Our experience
We have specific experience in chemicals legislation, and in
particular, in lobbying on the complex REACH legislation, the fuel
quality directive and the restriction of hazardous
substances. We can also help you with the plant protection
products directive (Directive 91/414), the biocides directive
(Directive 98/8) and we drafted the Belgian decree on biocides
law.
On influencing regulatory procedures, we have defended the
rights of clients in the review programmes undertaken by the
Commission under Directives 91/414 and 98/8 all the way to
litigation before the European Court of Justice.
We can also defend you in relation to obligations under the
REACH legislation, submitting interpretative opinions of those
obligations to the responsible authorities and defending your
rights in the various processes including appeals before the Appeal
Board.
We can call upon our in-depth, real and wide experience in a
vast range of regulatory issues including:
- risk assessment laws
- laws on plant protection products
- biocides
- cosmetics
- waste
- classification and labelling
- fertilizers
- restriction of hazardous substances in electrical and
electronic equipment
- fuel quality
- food stuffs