The week in business: 8 April

Mobile – Proximus
The state-owned mobile operator has been criticised by the telecommunications ombudsman for its failure to take seriously complaints from subscribers about m-commerce services, which send paid SMS messages to customers, often without the the subscriber ever signing up for the service. The issue was the subject of 510 complaints last year.

Mobile – Mobistar
The mobile operator will stop roaming charges for pre-paid clients from 30 April, making it no longer more expensive to make calls or use the internet in other EU countries. For subscribers, the charges decrease to €.06 a minute for phone calls and €.06 per megabyte of data used. The price of a text message goes down to €024.

Security – Securitas
The municipality of Herne in Flemish Brabant has become the first in the country to employ a private security firm to carry out routine patrols of public buildings. The decision to hire Securitas was taken after a wave of 53 break-ins in the months of January and February, mayor Kris Poelaert explained.

Technology – Gateway
The Limburg tech company, which specialises in software for booking hotels and flights, has been declared bankrupt by a court in Hasselt. The company started in 1990, and their software is used by more than 5,000 travel agents daily. Some 40 jobs are at risk from the failure.

Retail – ZEB
The public prosecutor in Halle-Vilvoorde has called for a fine of €48,000 for clothing store chain ZEB for a publicity stunt carried out last year that offered €5,000 worth of plastic surgery as a competition prize. According to the prosecutor, law forbids any form of advertising for plastic surgery.