New responsibilities begin with the people who will carry them out

A strategic plan comes to life in a case opened on a Monday morning, a difficult question or an explanation that needs to be given again. The 2027–2029 draft recognises this reality. It places continuing training, languages, cooperation between services and recruitment at the heart of the Institute’s work, particularly in the new digital fields.[2]

Bring different professions together around one case

Consider a hypothetical example: a business asks whether its new tool complies with the rules. The engineer wants to understand how it works. The lawyer examines obligations and powers. The economist explains the effects on the market. The person at the front desk needs to explain what can be answered immediately. These perspectives complement each other when they meet early.

This contribution therefore proposes workshops using fictional cases built from anonymised real files, temporary exchanges between services and training time included in workloads. Without that allocated time, training always gives way to the urgency of the next case. It also proposes that colleagues participating in a European group report what they have learned in a few dated lines.

What the Sewan case can teach us

Case law can support this shared work, provided it is read in full. Sewan’s dispute with the BIPT led to two judgments by the Market Court.

On 8 March 2023, the Court upheld the finding of infringements. It nevertheless held that the fine, which was criminal in nature, was “not properly reasoned”: the decision did not explain why certain mitigating circumstances had been rejected or why the announced amount remained unchanged despite the corrective measures taken by the operator. It annulled the decision on that point alone, remitted the determination of the amount to the BIPT and ordered the Institute to pay the costs.[8]

On 20 March 2024, in a second judgment, the Court confirmed the principle and proportionality of the fine but annulled the increase for an aggravating circumstance. Its reasoning distinguishes two things. First, knowledge of the rules, invoked in the decision: “There is nothing abnormal about Sewan knowing the rules; quite the contrary.” Second, awareness of breaching them, which the BIPT invoked only in its written submissions: that would imply a deliberate infringement, which the Court found unproven. Negligence, even inexcusable negligence, is not intent. As each party had partly failed in its claims, neither received a procedural indemnity.[9]

The lesson is not that an argument can never be developed before a court. It is more concrete: an aggravating circumstance must be proved, and the reasons for a fine must be explained step by step. A workshop could follow that chain through these two public judgments. Which fact has been established? Which rule applies? Why does that fact justify that amount?

These judgments say nothing about the general quality of a team. They address specific grounds of challenge in a specific case. What is upheld matters as much as what is corrected.

Measure what helps people work better

The draft provides for indicators and periodic evaluation while recognising that outcomes also depend on external factors.[2] For supervisory work, the contribution suggests indicators of how proceedings are conducted rather than their volume: time taken to handle a report, time between completion of the investigation and the decision, and follow-up to requested corrections. A figure never speaks for itself. Fewer reports may reflect better information or a route that has become harder to find.

The proposals in these four articles are the author’s own, drawn from the contribution he prepared for the BIPT consultation. They do not represent the Institute.