Consortium agreements for research projects of the European Commission are managed in Brussels. Therefore Belgian law is often applicable to these contracts. As organisations from all European Union member states and associated countries are potential contracting parties, numerous basic questions about Belgian contract law and multiparty agreements in particular exist with the legal advisors of these organisations. This inspired the Institute for the Law of Obligations of the K.U.Leuven to bring together Belgian experts of contract law in a one-day conference in Leuven in order to look at model agreements from a Belgian contract law perspective and to try and answer as much "frequently asked questions" as possible. Their contributions are laid down in this book. All contributions simultaneously discuss the rules of general Belgian contract law, the pitfalls of multiparty agreements, and the specifics of agreements regarding research consortia, through a detailed review of the relevant articles of three model contracts - the DESCA and IPCA models of consortium agreement and the FP7 grant agreement model.
Where necessary, suggestions are made on how to improve these documents, and the legal certainty they provide. With contributions by Tam Dang Vu, Luc Demeyere, Sanne Jansen, Thalia Kruger, Annekatrien Lenaerts, Vincent Sagaert, Ilse Samoy, Sophie Stijns, Olivier Vanden Berghe, Kristof Vanhove, Sigrid Ververken and Maaike Visser.