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Banking & Finance

Belgium

The CMS Banking & Finance practice is one of Europe’s largest and provides local and pan-European expertise in the full spectrum of banking, finance, regulatory and capital markets law.

We ensure our services are ahead of market trends, anticipating the challenging environment of your business.

A tailored commercial approach is key. We want your business to thrive.

Whether you are a bank or a corporation, a financial service provider or an entity confronted with regulation, an investment fund or public entity, our priority is resolving your challenges and putting your world first.

Our network consists of over 500 banking and finance lawyers who have proven their pan-European skills in working together for more than one decade.

Whether you seek deep-rooted local advice or multi-jurisdictional expertise, our teams will advise you seamlessly. We select and tailor the teams that will best fit with the scope of your matter.

Top level project management goes hand in hand with expertise. Rigor and determination go hand in hand with innovation.

We aim to be one step ahead of market developments, in order to build relationships with you that last.

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CMS is ‘superb in financing’, where it acts as counsel for major banks and investors – representing Degroof Bank and Octo Finances in a Belgo-French bond issuance was a case in point. Arnaud Van Oekel and Bruno Duquesne head the practice, which includes recently promoted counsel Benoît Vandervelde, who ‘rapidly grasps a complex transaction’.

Legal 500, 2017

"The firm is 'Very proactive, able to move the files on and work at a fast pace to produce clear and helpful advice.'"

Feedback from a client about the department - Chambers Europe, 2018 (Banking & Finance)

"The fact that they had offices across Europe was a big help."

Feedback from a client - Chambers Europe, 2018

CMS is ‘superb in financing’, where it acts as counsel for major banks and investors – representing Degroof Bank and Octo Finances in a Belgo-French bond issuance was a case in point. Arnaud Van Oekel and Bruno Duquesne head the practice, which includes recently promoted counsel Benoît Vandervelde, who ‘rapidly grasps a complex transaction’.

Legal 500, 2017

"The firm is 'Very proactive, able to move the files on and work at a fast pace to produce clear and helpful advice.'"

Feedback from a client about the department - Chambers Europe, 2018 (Banking & Finance)

"The fact that they had offices across Europe was a big help."

Feedback from a client - Chambers Europe, 2018
18/12/2017
10 ques­tions about the new Bel­gian se­cur­ity in­terests re­gime
The re­form of the leg­al frame­work of se­cur­ity in­terests over mov­able as­sets was seen as long over­due. The trans­ition from the pre­vi­ous sys­tem, based on the dis­pos­ses­sion of the pledged as­sets, to a new dis­pos­ses­sion-free sys­tem based on on­line re­gis­tra­tion will give Bel­gi­um a sys­tem just as mod­ern as the ones in neigh­bour­ing coun­tries.This re­form was ad­op­ted in Ju­ly 2013. The new Act will enter in­to force on 1 Janu­ary 2018 and will turn the es­tab­lished prac­tices up­side down and will ob­lige lenders to over­haul their cred­it doc­u­ment­a­tion. Moreover, banks will quickly have to re­view all their pledges over busi­ness as­sets. In fact, the lat­ter pledges will only re­tain their rank if the ne­ces­sary ac­tions are taken with­in 12 months fol­low­ing the entry in­to force of the new Act.The new rules will ap­ply without pre­ju­dice to spe­cif­ic pro­vi­sions of oth­er le­gis­la­tion, such as the law on fin­an­cial col­lat­er­als.Our brief guide provides a sum­mary of the core parts of the re­form in the form of a Q&A.If you have any ques­tions or are in­ter­ested to fol­low-up, please con­tact us: Arnaud Van Oekel and Ben­oît Vandervelde
Guide
Bank­ing & Fin­ance
We have ex­per­i­ence in a large num­ber of fin­an­cing trans­ac­tions, act­ing as coun­sel for for­eign and do­mest­ic banks, com­pan­ies and pub­lic au­thor­it­ies in (re)struc­tur­ing, ne­go­ti­at­ing, draft­ing vari­ous cred­it, factor­ing and se­cur­it­iz­a­tion ar­range­ments and re­lated con­tracts, in­clud­ing se­cur­ity pack­ages. We reg­u­larly ad­vise on cap­it­al mar­ket mat­ters, both on debt and equity side, as well as on de­riv­at­ive-based trans­ac­tions. Our team also of­fers a wide range of trans­ac­tion­al and ad­vis­ory ser­vices for all as­pects of struc­tured products trans­ac­tions, in­clud­ing life in­sur­ance schemes.In ad­di­tion, we are fa­mil­i­ar with the vari­ous leg­al and reg­u­lat­ory as­pects which the fin­ance in­dustry faces gen­er­ally. For many years we were coun­sel to sev­er­al lead­ing fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tions (banks, Mi­FID firms, in­sur­ance un­der­tak­ings, funds, pay­ment ser­vices pro­viders) for vari­ous as­pects of their busi­ness in Bel­gi­um, in­clud­ing their re­la­tion­ships with the reg­u­lat­ory au­thor­it­ies (li­cens­ing, pruden­tial re­quire­ments, mer­ger and ac­quis­i­tion) and lit­ig­a­tion.To find out more about how we can help you with Bank­ing & Fin­ance re­lated mat­ters, down­load our bro­chure be­low.
Brochure
June 2018
CMS in­tro­duces Private Place­ments on­line Ques­tion­naire
Private place­ments are in­creas­ingly be­ing used for debt fund­ing as an al­tern­at­ive to bank fin­an­cingFind the right one for you!The mar­ket of­fers a large num­ber of Private Place­ment (PP) products with many dif­fer­ent fea­tures, for ex­ample Schuld­schein­dar­le­hen, Euro PP, US PP, syn­dic­ated loans etc. Stay­ing on top of all this is al­ways a chal­lenge and one could quickly lose track. Thus, how should you choose the product which is most suit­able for you?Use the CMS PP-Tool!  10 Ques­tions - 1 An­swer - 1 Re­com­mend­a­tionPlease start the ques­tion­naire >Our tool provides you with a quick over­view of the dif­fer­ent fea­tures of some private place­ment op­tions offered in the mar­ket, not only in case of emer­gency!
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20/07/2020
CMS Ad­vises EBRD on Re­new­able En­ergy In­vest­ment in Ukraine
Deal (News) Banking & Finance
17 April 2020
CMS Ex­pert Guide to coronavir­us re­lated loan morator­i­ums
This guide con­tains a brief but com­pre­hens­ive over­view of cred­it morator­i­ums for 30 coun­tries world­wide, col­lated with a view to help­ing our cli­ents nav­ig­ate through the vari­ous gov­ern­ment re­sponses, and which will be up­dated on a reg­u­lar basis.
Expert Guide Banking & Finance
07 August 2020
Oil & Gas / Ship­ping – Com­mer­cial Court Ex­am­ines Leg­al Ef­fect of “Sub­ject...
In the con­text of a crude oil voy­age charter, the Com­mer­cial Court has provided guid­ance on the leg­al ef­fect of “sub­ject to” pro­vi­sions in con­tracts.  In do­ing so, the Com­mer­cial Court noted that,...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
23/04/2020
Are you eli­gible for the new State-guar­an­teed loans?
Newsletter Coronavirus (COVID-19)
17 February 2020
CMS Ex­pert Guide to air­craft fin­ance and leas­ing
Are you look­ing for leg­al in­form­a­tion on air­craft fin­ance and leas­ing? This CMS Ex­pert Guide provides you with everything you need to know.
Expert Guide Banking & Finance
02 July 2020
EU agrees new class ac­tion re­gime for con­sumer dis­putes
After a long gest­a­tion, on 30 June 2020 the Coun­cil of the EU pub­lished the text for the col­lect­ive re­dress dir­ect­ive (the “CR Dir­ect­ive”) (text avail­able here). This le­gis­la­tion is in­ten­ded to bet­ter...
Law-Now Insurance
17/03/2020
CMS as­sisted In­vest­corp in the ac­quis­i­tion of the Brus­sels Headquar­ters...
Deal (News) Real Estate & Construction
26 April 2019
CMS Ex­pert Guide to STO reg­u­la­tion and law
Are you look­ing for in­form­a­tion on STO reg­u­la­tion and law? This CMS Ex­pert Guide provides you with everything you need to know.
Expert Guide TMC - Technology, Media & Communications
29 June 2020
Se­cur­it­isa­tion in Europe: at the cross­roads
In­tro­duc­tion On 10 June 2020 the High Level For­um on the Cap­it­al Mar­kets Uni­on (the “HLF”) pub­lished its Fi­nal Re­port (the “Re­port”) on “A New Vis­ion for Europe’s Cap­it­al Mar­kets”. The Re­port...
Law-Now Banking & Finance
14 November 2019
CMS Guide to Pass­port­ing (UCITS)
The pur­pose of this guide is to provide a broad over­view of the key ele­ments of pass­port­ing reg­u­la­tions ap­plic­able to EEA UCITS Scheme in the coun­tries covered in this guide. The guide makes no claims as to com­plete­ness and does not con­sti­tute leg­al ad­vic
Guide Banking & Finance
01 January 2016
CMS Ex­pert Guide to real es­tate fin­ance law
Are you look­ing for in­form­a­tion on real es­tate fin­ance law? This CMS Ex­pert Guide provides you with everything you need to know.
Expert Guide Banking & Finance
08 June 2020
Se­cur­it­isa­tion – Sig­ni­fic­ant Event In­form­a­tion Dis­clos­ure re­lated to COV­ID-19
The EU Se­cur­it­isa­tion Reg­u­la­tion[1] re­quires the re­port­ing of “sig­ni­fic­ant events” which oc­cur in re­spect of se­cur­it­isa­tions is­sued on or after 1st Janu­ary 2019. The EU Se­cur­it­isa­tion Reg­u­la­tion con­tin­ues...
Law-Now COVID-19: The new normal?
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