Prices for cloud services in Belgium are rising by 8 per cent annually. This was reported by Beltug, the Belgian association of businesses that are, naturally, heavily reliant on ICT services. Specialist consultancy firms expect price rises of between 5 and 10 per cent, mainly due to rising hardware costs.
If a supplier wishes to increase the price, there must be a valid basis for this in the contract. This often takes the form of an indexation clause, which determines whether and by how much the price may rise annually. But the law is stricter than most companies realise: ‘A price adjustment may not exceed 80 per cent of the price and must be based on actual cost elements, such as labour costs in the sector,’ says Joris Deene, a partner specialising in IT and intellectual property law at Everest Advocaten, in the daily newspaper De Standaard.
If such a clause is drafted invalidly, it may become entirely void. ‘Such an invalid clause is not adjusted to what is legally permitted,’ says Deene. ‘The supplier then receives no indexation at all and the original price remains in force. Many long-term ICT contracts contain such a clause.’
If there is no valid clause in the contract, the higher price is, in principle, merely a proposal and not an enforceable right. ‘In that case, you simply pay the agreed price and not the increase,’ says Deene. Even a general term allowing the supplier to unilaterally change the price is not automatically valid. Between businesses, such a clause may be regarded as unlawful if the supplier can adjust the price without a valid reason’.
