INTRODUCTION

A thorough knowledge of and familiarity with each other are prerequisites for any well-balanced relationship. Cohabitation in a multi-layered legal system, with complex interrelations between its different layers, is not always a walk in the park. Member States have to learn to live with their shrinking procedural autonomy and the way this affects their national legal system, due to the varying impact of EU (case) law, fundamental legal principles and even soft law instruments.

Against this background of procedural autonomy, two topics are analysed which are particularly relevant from a Belgian viewpoint. The first reveals, in the wake of a recent CJEU judgment, the urgent need to rethink profoundly and deliberate the Belgian rules on litigation costs. The second topic confronts us with the phenomenon of spontaneous harmonisation. Transposing a rule written for cross-border litigation in the domestic context has to be applauded. But the transposition could have been done in a much more effective way.

THE RECOVERABILITY OF COSTS OF LAWYERS’ FEES AND COSTS OF TECHNICAL ADVISERS AFTER UNITED VIDEO PROPERTIES INC. v. TELENET NV (C-57/15)

RECOVERABILITY OF LAWYERS’ FEES AND EXPENSES IN BELGIUM: ANTECEDENTS OF THE CASE

EU regulations and directives have repercussions on a vast list of procedural topics. Litigation costs is one of them. Recent Belgian case law offers an example of serious friction with national rules, caused by Article 14 of the IP Rights Enforcement Directive. This provision states:

In its Realchemie judgment the CJEU reminded that this provision aims to strengthen the level of protection of intellectual property, by avoiding the situation in which an injured party is deterred from bringing legal proceedings in order to protect his rights.

Although some have argued that also Article 14 of the Directive required implementation because of the nature of IP cases, especially the complexity of the legal and technical issues at stake which makes, e.g. patent litigation quite expensive, the Belgian legislator did not transpose this provision.