On 6 February 2026, the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA) announced that it sent a Statement of Objections to sugar producers Tiense Suikerraffinaderij/Raffinerie Tirlemontoise (TSRT) and its parent company Südzucker AG (see attached press release).

The defendants stand accused of abusing the alleged state of economic dependency of sugar beet growers, a category of TSRT suppliers. The BCA takes aim at the conditions of procurement which TSRT applies and which, according to the BCA, cause the sugar beet growers to find themselves in a “general state of uncertainty (…) with respect to their expected revenues, limiting unduly their autonomy in the management of their agricultural and commercial activities, and imposing on them a disproportionate share of the commercial risks involved in the sugar supply chain”.

The case forms the first known application by the BCA of Article IV.2/1 of the Code of Economic Law (see, Van Bael & Bellis Belgian Antitrust Watch of 2 August 2024), a provision which on a few occasions has also been tested in court in private litigation.

However, unlike private litigants, the BCA can marshal its considerable investigative resources to probe for allegedly abusive conduct.

The BCA’s announcement comes at an interesting time. Last year the European Commission (Commission) was considering eliminating or reducing the scope of national abuse of economic dependency rules in an effort to harmonise the competition rules as part of the reform of Regulation 1/2003, the EU’s main set of procedural competition rules.

However, at the insistence of Member States such as Germany and France, the Commission rapidly dropped that plan while continuing the process of reform of Regulation 1/2003.