Webinar LaLiga on “With the development of society through football”

On May 13th, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg hosted a webinar on “With the development of society through football”, in collaboration with its member company LaLiga.

The aim of this webinar was to present and explain the different social, educational and sportive projects of LaLiga, as well as the new initiatives they have been organizing during the COVID-19 crisis to support society and get closer to their fans all over the world. The webinar, which was taught in English, aimed to explain how through these projects the values of football are the vehicle to build a better world.

 

Andrea Oriol, LaLiga’s delegate in Benelux, started by informing about the important place these projects have in the company’s activity and explained that it is more than just about football and competition. “Giving back to society what society has given us” is the guiding theme of all these projects.

During the conference it was explained how due to the pandemic LaLiga has organized various activities under the subject of #LaLigaSeJuegaEnCasa. Among other examples, the association has organized its own initiatives such as “LaLiga Santander Festival” in which they managed to raise more than 1M € in donations from all over the world. At the same time, they have also participated in other initiatives run by other organisations such as the Red Cross in which they worked with their partner companies in China to donate medical supplies to Spain.

 

In addition, she reported the digital transformation of all LaLiga Foundation’s sports programs due to the pandemic but stressed the importance, more than ever, of keeping these programs active. Social and sports projects around the world have been maintained thanks to the social work of LaLiga. These projects are spread all over the globe, for example in India to promote gender equality, or in Brazil to promote youth telent’s visibility. They also have social projects developed through programs as well known as LaLiga Genuine Santander, Social Fair Play or LaLiga Valores y Oportunidad.

To conclude, the speaker presented the objectives achieved so far in figures as a general balance and highlighted the three future objectives in this social work: giving continuity and monitoring all its projects, continue to generate opportunities and empowerment among its participants and continue to expand horizons to new projects and countries.

At the end, a Q&A round was held in which the participants were able to raise their doubts about the information presented.

From the Chamber we want to thank Andrea Oriol and LaLiga for their presentation and dedication, as well as all participants for their presence.

Webinar on “Covid-19: How EU Programmes and Projects are affected?”

 

Last May 5th, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce of in Belgium and Luxembourg, organized a webinar on “Covid-19: How EU Programmes and Projects are affected?”, in collaboration with our member Zabala Innovation Consulting.

The aim of this webinar was to present and explain the companies the different measures announced by the European Commission after the crisis caused by COVID-19 and to detail the new deadlines for presenting already established projects.

Marie Latour, Head of Zabala Brussels Office, began by informing that the Commission has extended the timeframe for projects to allow Member States to accelerate research, testing and production of products relevant to the coronavirus and thus protect jobs and to further support the economy during this crisis.

During the conference, Latour explained that, due to the global pandemic, the European budget will be affected and this could lead to the modification of the next Multiannual Financial Framework. She also detailed the measures taken by the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund. Then she described the European programs which have suffered some modifications due to the coronavirus and explained the changes in the existing calls. At the same time, the speaker reported on other interesting calls that are still open, such as EUREKA, the AMABLE project or SmartEEs2 project, among others.

Finally, Latour explained other aspects of the projects that have been affected by this crisis, such as evaluations, their execution, or their financing.

At the end, a round of questions was featured where the participants could ask their doubts about the information explained.

The Chamber wants to sincerely thank Marie Latour and Zavala Innovation Consulting once again for her presentation and her dedication, as well as to the participants for their attendance.

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Webinar on “Covid-19: analysis of the economic measures for businesses in Belgium”

On April 15th, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce of in Belgium and Luxembourg, organized a webinar on “Covid-19: analysis of the economic measures for businesses in Belgium”, in collaboration with SPF Finance, Flanders Investment & Trade, Brussels Invest & Export, Invest in Wallonia and its member Paterna Professional. The webinar was attended by more than 50 companies.

This webinar was aimed at Spanish companies stablished in Belgium, in order to help them identify the different financial and economic measures they can apply both for the regional (Brussels, Flanders and Wallonie), and federal levels.

The webinar was presented by Juan Rodríguez-Villa, President of the Chamber, who thanked the speakers from the different organisms and all the participants from different companies for their collaboration and mentioned the difficult and unprecedented situation that we are going through that means a great challenge for everyone.

The webinar started with Michela Ritondo, International tax expert from SPF Finance, who explained the measures taken by the Belgian federal authorities in relation to the payment of taxes and detailed other business support measures.

Then Antonia Macías, Enterprise Creator Advisor and Julie Chandellier, Legal Officer in Social Law, of Partena Professional summarized the measures taken at national level to help the self-employed in issues regarding social security. Likewise, they also mentioned the different procedures and temporary unemployment benefits for companies and their employees.

After it, the General Secretary of the Chamber, Marta González, introduced the representatives of the organizations of the different regions in Belgium. From the Brussels Region, Ariane Leonard, Economic and comercial Advisor, Representative of the Government of Brussels in Spain, and Aurore Boraczek, Inward Investment, hub.brussels, explained the measures taken in the Brussels Region such as the single bonus of € 4,000 for companies that have had to compulsorily close or the suspension of the so-called “city tax” for hotels. From Flanders Investment & Trade, Peter Verplancken, Deputy Director, Inward Investment & Aftercare, explained, among others, the financial incentives offered by the Flemish government or the postponement for the filing of taxes. Finally, Michel Winniczek, Project Manager from Invest in Wallonia (AWEX), informed about the different measures offered by the Walloon region to companies, the procedures for requesting these grants and the postponement of payment of fees.

After the presentation, a round of questions was featured where the participants could ask their doubts about the measures explained.

The Chamber wants to sincerely thank the SPF Finance, Flanders Investment & Trade, Brussels Invest & Export, Invest in Wallonia and Partena Professional for having participated in this initiative.

 

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Breakfast-Conference: “Understand and promote the compliance”

Last 6th of February 2018, the Chamber organized a conference about the comprehension and the promotion of the compliance in collaboration with DS Avocats Law Firm. The event was attended by many representatives of Spanish and Belgian companies, as well as EU organization’s representatives, who were interested on the impact this topic could have on them, wanted to know which steps to follow in order to avoid the penalties their companies may suffer.  

First, Jean-Marie Salva, partner of DS Avocats, started by pronouncing some welcome words and by thanking the attendees for their participation before presenting the law office’s work around the world. Then, he presented Ángela López de Molina, partner of the law firm, who will set a headquarters office in Madrid on March 1st.

During her presentation, López Molina spoke about the current legislation in Spain, which since the change of the Penal Code in 2015 which allows to impute criminal responsibility to the legal persons, requires the companies to design a crime prevention plan.

The compliance was created in 1970, in response to the corruption experienced by the United States through the legal persons.

The crime prevention plan is set as a series of measures of surveillance and control implemented to prevent the commission of crimes or, at least, to try to reduce significantly the possibility of being committed. To do this, it is necessary to count on the “Compliance Officer”, that is a person in charge of preventing all the possible crime situations and trying to solve them.

Furthermore, it is necessary for all the employees to have access to that plan and to expressly accept it. As a conclusion, Ángela mentioned the prevention, detection, answer and supervision activities necessary to credit that the company acts according to the law.

Later, Michel Debroux, partner of DS Avocats, exposed the evolution of the compliance through the years in Europe, which changed from something voluntary to something mandatory.

Debroux pointed out the existence of cultural differences to show the difficulty in unifying the action criteria, even inside a same company with offices established in different places of the world. Thus, he underlined the necessity of taking into account the local specificities to suit in law.

In the case of a company with offices in different places of the world, it is necessary for all of them to apply to the rules of the headquarter office and to its owns, as they have to fit in the local customs.

Thus, the compliance is a process which requires the organization, integration and verification of the regulatory compliance.

As López Molina explained, the speaker described the main tasks that the “Compliance Officer” needs to accomplish. He needs to establish a list with the potential risks. Therefore, he will need to be totally integrated in the company and has to be able to deal with crisis.

Finally, to conclude, the partner of DS Avocats presented what they call “the 10 rules of the perfect compliance project” in which the main characteristics to respect in order to manage perfectly this project are summarized.

The conference took part in a participatory environment during which every attendee had the opportunity to express their doubts and talk with the speakers.

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Luncheon-debate with Věra Jourová, European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality

The past September 28th, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg, organized in collaboration with the General Board of Abogacía Española, a luncheon-debate with Věra Jourová, European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality. Among the attendees there were several members of the Chamber, business executives, and representatives of Spanish and European companies and institutions.

Juan Rodríguez-Villa Matons, President of the Chamber, said a welcome word, introduced the Commissioner, highlighting her professional career and thanked her for her collaboration with the luncheon-debate.

Afterwards, the Commissioner took the stand and introduced briefly the main challenges her Commission is currently dealing with such as promoting entrepreneurship in Europe, the digital markets, the insolvency, data protection, consumer rights, digital content, gender equality and justice against crime.

Jourová emphasized the importance of creating a digital single market, explaining that currently there are only a few small companies which are selling products online cross borders. In Spain, only a 19% of companies do so. The main barrier to increase online commerce at international level is that there are different legal systems for online and offline worlds.

Afterwards, she showed her concerning about the lack of a regulatory law related to online sales of digital content (except from United Kingdom and The Netherlands) and mentioned that from theCommission they are working on a proposal for all European countries.

About data protection, she expressed the need of investing more money on new measures and tools that allow institutions to know what companies actually do with consumer’s personal data. On the other hand, she stressed the need of making a bigger effort on explaining the EU citizens about their new rights concerning data protection and privacy and how to use those rights.

During her speech, Jourová also talked about individual consumers’ rights, very numerous in the European Union, but about which there exists a very poor public information. In a time frame where big companies are becoming bigger, and small companies are tend to be smaller, from March 2018, the Commission for Justice is working on a plan which will provide individuals and small companies with the right tools to defend their rights related to trade and consumption.

The main topics discussed during the question time were related to gender equality at work environment and cybersecurity.

Finally, Marta Cerro, President of the Council of Bars of Castilla la Mancha, presented the Bar, and highlighted the role of lawyers in the European Union environment and how they contribute directly to citizens defense. She pointed out the need of respecting the citizens and providing them with a high quality service. In addition, she thanked the commissioner for her hard work and commitment with gender equality, and showed her her support in terms of promoting values related with the recognition of women in work environment.

Juan Rodriguez-Villa and Marga Cerro awarded Commissioner Jourová with a symbolic present to thank her for her participation in the luncheon-debate and her hard work in charge of for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality in the European Commission.

The president also wanted to thank Bodegas Yuntero, wine sponsor for this event.

Sponsored by:

 

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“The new Community Customs Code” Breakfast-debate

Last Monday, 7 December, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg organized a breakfast-debate about the new Community Customs Code. Jean-Marie Salva, specialist lawyer on the customs sector and member of DS Avocat lawyer’s office made the report.

The new Community Customs Code will enter into force on 1 May 2016. It is the new issue for the Customs Union, which will replace the current one from 1992. The realization and the delegate acts have already been made public. The new text that was approved after a long debate, has significant advantages for companies that are able to identify these advantages and use them. Topics covered during the session include the status of Authorized Economic Operator, the rules for determining the customs value, modes of representation and the rules related with the setting of the custom value.

After the conference, there was a question time in which the attendees raised doubts such as how to apply the new Custom Code on their sectors, to which Mr Salva answered in detail. The breakfast-debate counted with a large number of participants.