Competition/European Law

About

Provided by Pels Rijcken

Over the years, the influence of European law on our national legislation has gradually increased. Areas such as agriculture, trade and transport were already affected heavily, but legislation now also has a direct impact on the lives of civilians as it touches legal areas such as migration, criminal law and family law. European Law is now found in legal fields and sectors hitherto unaffected.

Pels Rijcken employs attorneys who have closely follow and stay on top of these developments and they know Brussels' procedures and how to play by the EU's institutional rules. They carefully examine the meaning of the Union's legislation and are quick to see where there is room at the national level for additional or deviant measures.

In our advisory practice, state aid is one of the focal points. Where a proposed measure involves government guarantees for housing corporations, saving banks or drafting a partnership agreement for an area development project, the question of whether this measure is "state aid-proof" always arises. We have public sector clients and increasingly act on behalf of provincial authorities and large municipalities. A recurrent question that arises in our advice practice is how to safeguard certain public interests when acting within the state aid framework.

Pels Rijcken EU law specialists spend most of their time litigating before both administrative courts as well as the civil courts, handling cases that range from transport concessions to food safety.