Notably, the BCA explicitly endorses the Belgian government’s interfederal plan “MAKE2025–2030,” which aims to strengthen Belgian industry. The BCA commits to supporting the plan through concrete policy recommendations and actions, reflecting a more nuanced approach to the relationship between antitrust enforcement and industrial policy.
What are the BCA’s priority sectors?
The BCA has identified five broad sectors on which to focus intervention in 2026. However, as recent inspections in the road signage and street furniture sectors demonstrate, infringing behavior in other sectors may still be investigated.
1. Agri-food sector
In the agri-food sector, the BCA will focus on swift and effective detection of antitrust infringements and will maintain a strict approach to merger control. It is pursuing several formal and informal cases concerning possible abuses of a dominant position or economic dependence, including in the sugar sector. Trade association practices also remain a priority; in 2025, binding commitments relating to the price index for potatoes were obtained from a trade association for the potato sector.
2. Healthcare
The BCA will continue to focus on the whole pharmaceutical distribution chain and will target pharmaceutical manufacturers, wholesaler-distributors, pharmacies and hospitals alike. Notably, in 2025 the authority reached a settlement decision relating to an anticompetitive category management arrangement for the placement of over-the-counter (OTC) medicines in pharmacies. The BCA also sent a statement of objections to a pharmaceutical company concerning exclusionary practices aimed at biosimilars of two of the company’s anticancer medicines, reflecting the BCA’s priority of ensuring fair competition between originators and producers of generics and biosimilars.
More recently, in December 2025, the BCA opened a formal investigation into a possible abuse of a dominant position by a company active in providing technological solutions and data analytics to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies. This investigation reflects the BCA's growing attention to the intersection of digitalization and healthcare.
The BCA also stresses that it will continue to exercise its merger control powers for hospital mergers not excluded from the Belgian merger control regime by the law of March 29, 2024. Large hospital mergers will therefore continue to attract the BCA’s scrutiny.
3. Digital economy and telecommunications
The digital sector remains a top priority, with the BCA paying particular attention to the growing use of advanced algorithms, including algorithmic decision-making, automated and dynamic pricing, and market monitoring tools. Digital platforms will also continue to attract the attention of the BCA, evidenced among others by a recent investigation in the online advertising sector.
For telecommunications, the BCA will remain actively involved in facilitating and assessing fiber network rollout projects, with ongoing proceedings relating to both Flanders and Wallonia. It will also continue to monitor prices for electronic communications and will not hesitate to intervene if it feels that sufficient competition is lacking.
4. Basic services, including regulated professions and financial/banking services
The services sector, including regulated services and professions (such as finance, legal, accounting and auditing, security, quality control, and various medical professions) will remain under scrutiny given the BCA considers that existing regulation and professional rules protecting consumers in those areas do not necessarily guarantee effective competition or easy entry for new providers.
The BCA will enforce antitrust law in relation to professional rules and will advocate revision where market regulation is more restrictive than necessary to meet objectives of general economic interest.
5. Sports, media, and entertainment
The inclusion of sports as an enforcement priority may lead to increased scrutiny of decisions adopted by sports regulators, including rules on the organization of sporting competitions, exclusive sponsorships, or technical rules. Significantly, a 2025 interim order suspended the technical standard of the International Cycling Union limiting the maximum gear ratio allowed in professional road cycling events.
The BCA also remains committed to facilitating sufficient media access to sporting events. A 2024 decision made a media company’s exclusive acquisition of live broadcasting rights for cyclocross races conditional on a limit to the duration of those exclusive rights and the undertaking not obtaining exclusive rights to more than 75% of cyclocross races per season.
More broadly, the BCA will investigate practices that could potentially result in refusal of access to sport and entertainment events, or in services offered at unreasonable prices, as demonstrated by the recent opening of an investigation into the possible effects of the takeover of the Pukkelpop music festival.
What are the BCA’s strategic projects and areas for action?
Alongside its enforcement priorities, the 2026 priorities paper outlines various strategic projects and areas for action.
- Merger control modernization: The BCA will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the national merger control procedure, including modernization of notification forms. It will also consider the introduction of a call-in power for transactions that fall below statutory notification thresholds, expressing its concern that current notification thresholds are very high.
- Guidelines and advocacy initiatives: Guidelines on sustainability agreements as well as a guide providing contracting authorities with practical tools to recognize and prevent bid rigging are set for publication early 2026. A communication relating to no-poach agreements is expected later in 2026. The BCA will also launch a targeted awareness campaign on the illegality of vertical price fixing, with particular attention to online commerce and price comparison systems.
- Increasing detection: The BCA will continue to make significant investments in IT tools and detection capabilities, including through a virtual lab for large-scale economic analyses, automated exchange and statistical analysis of databases relevant to detecting bid rigging, and automated collection and analysis of publicly available information to detect collusion and identify transactions that have not been notified under the merger control regime. It also intends to make more systematic use of its powers to conduct general investigations, with the results of the first-of-its-kind general investigation into sectoral price revision and indexation mechanisms expected early 2026.
- Cooperation: The BCA continues to strengthen national and international cooperation. A key point for 2026 will be the conclusion of a long-awaited cooperation protocol with the Data Protection Authority, enabling better coordination between antitrust law enforcement and data protection.
Key takeaways
The 2026 priorities paper confirms the BCA’s continued evolution as an increasingly active and well-resourced antitrust authority. Its enhanced detection capabilities and expanded advocacy agenda suggest that enforcement will intensify. Businesses operating in a priority sector are therefore advised to proactively review their commercial practices for compliance with antitrust rules.
We consider that the following types of undertaking may face particular scrutiny by the BCA:
- Companies holding an absolute or relative dominant position in the agri-food sector
- Companies providing digital solutions and data analytics to the pharmaceutical sector
- Companies offering core platform services
- Sporting federations when adopting decisions relating to, inter alia, the organization of a competition, technical rules, disciplinary rules, membership rules, the marketing of broadcasting rights, or exclusive sponsorship agreements
We also note that the following themes warrant particular attention from businesses operating in Belgium:
- Mergers and acquisitions: The BCA is expected to continue actively monitoring below-threshold transactions. Despite the absence of formal call-in powers, the BCA will not hesitate to investigate below-threshold transactions under Articles 101 and 102 TFEU and its Belgian equivalents (Articles IV.1 and IV.2 of the Code of Economic Law). Companies should therefore consider carefully whether their below-threshold transaction may be of interest to the BCA.
- Public procurement: Bid rigging has been high on the BCA’s enforcement agenda for years and the automated exchange and statistical analysis of relevant databases will only enhance detection capabilities. Companies should ensure that robust compliance procedures are in place to prevent any conduct that could be characterized as bid rigging.
- Employers and HR professionals: The announced communication on no-poach agreements is likely to foreshadow more intense enforcement relating to labor market practices. HR professionals and in-house counsel are advised to review their employment policies and avoid any type of behavior that may amount to collusion about hiring, wages or other labor conditions.
- Trade associations: Trade associations publishing price indexes or other commercial information should make sure that their information-gathering process has sufficient safeguards and that the information they circulate is sufficiently aggregated. Individual members should also carefully review how their trade associations collect and share information.
- Distribution agreements: The upcoming awareness campaign on retail price maintenance warrants a review of distribution agreements to ensure resale prices are not being fixed or subject to minimum price requirements, particularly in online commerce.
