Situation: €310,000 outstanding. A French medical devices manufacturer supplied diagnostic equipment to a Belgian pharmaceutical distributor based in the Brussels suburbs. The distributor had been a client for two years, with consistent payment on smaller orders. The €310,000 represented a single large order — the largest in the relationship — and payment was due within 60 days of delivery. Delivery was confirmed. Payment was not.

Belgium occupies a unique position in European commerce: it's the administrative heart of the EU, the logistics crossroads of Northwestern Europe, and home to a disproportionate number of companies that chose Brussels or Antwerp for geographic convenience rather than deep local roots. For creditors, this creates a specific pattern: debtors who are sophisticated, internationally connected, and aware that Belgium's three-language judicial system (Dutch, French, German) can create procedural complications for foreign creditors who don't know which court speaks which language.

The Belgian judicial landscape

Belgium's court system is divided along linguistic lines. The Tribunal de l'entreprise (Enterprise Court) handles commercial disputes, but which enterprise court has jurisdiction depends on the debtor's registered office location and the language of the judicial district. Brussels operates a bilingual (French/Dutch) court system. Wallonia operates in French. Flanders operates in Dutch. Filing in the wrong language can result in procedural delays or nullification of the action.

For our French client, the debtor's registered office in the Brussels arrondissement meant that the case could be filed in either French or Dutch before the Tribunal de l'entreprise francophone de Bruxelles or the Nederlandstalige ondernemingsrechtbank Brussel. We filed in French — matching the client's documentation and the language of the commercial relationship.

What we deployed

Belgium's payment order procedure was reformed in 2016 with the introduction of the procédure sommaire d'injonction de payer (summary payment order procedure) under Articles 1394/20-27 of the Judicial Code. This procedure allows creditors to obtain an enforceable payment order for undisputed commercial claims without a hearing — purely on the basis of documentary evidence submitted to the court.

The threshold is clear: the claim must be "certain, fixed, and due" (certaine, liquide et exigible). For our client's claim — supported by a signed contract, delivery confirmation, and the debtor's own purchase order — this threshold was comfortably met.

We filed the injonction de payer within one week of receiving the mandate. The court issued the payment order within 15 days. The debtor had one month to file an opposition. They didn't. The order became enforceable as a judgment.

Simultaneously, we obtained a saisie conservatoire (conservatory seizure) on the debtor's bank account at BNP Paribas Fortis. The seizure was granted within 72 hours of application — before the payment order was even issued. The debtor discovered both the account freeze and the payment order in the same week.

The debtor's managing director contacted our Brussels office four days after the account freeze. Payment of €310,000 was arranged in two tranches: €200,000 immediately and €110,000 within 30 days. Both payments arrived on schedule. Timeline: 38 days from mandate to completion.

The Belgian enforcement advantage

Belgium's enforcement system operates through huissiers de justice (judicial officers) who, like their French and Dutch counterparts, combine private practice with state-delegated enforcement authority. Belgian huissiers can execute seizures on bank accounts, movable assets, real property, and receivables. They can also access the Fichier Central des Avis de saisie (Central File of Seizure Notices) to determine whether other creditors have already seized the debtor's assets — information that is critical for assessing recovery prospects before investing in enforcement proceedings.

For EU creditors, Belgium's position as a Brussels Regulation jurisdiction means that judgments from other EU member states are directly enforceable without a separate recognition proceeding. This makes Belgium one of the easiest EU jurisdictions for cross-border enforcement — provided you file in the correct linguistic jurisdiction.

If you're owed money by a Belgian entity, the enforcement tools are fast and the courts are efficient — but the linguistic and procedural complexity requires local navigation. Brief our Brussels team before filing in the wrong language costs you three months.