A complaint by entertainment production house Studio 100 against subsidies paid to a competitor has been rejected by the Council of State. The non-profit Musical van Vlaanderen, run by the chief executive of Music Hall, Geert Allaert, was granted a subsidy by former culture minister Bert Anciaux worth €2.45 million over three years. The complaint by Studio 100 and contemporary music foundation Stihmul alleged unfair competition and has delayed a Musical van Vlaanderen production.

The Ghent prosecutor’s office has been asked by the city to carry out an investigation into a couple who admitted on TV that they had entered a marriage of convenience. Linsey Daman, born in Flanders, told the VRT religious documentary series In Godsnaam (In God’s Name) that her husband, Algerian-born Abdelali Jahoub, had married her using false documents in order to succeed with an asylum request. The couple met on a Muslim dating website and married just 12 days later.

The Bokrijk open-air museum in Limburg province will be the setting for a new youth series from the makers of Fata Morgana and Katarakt. The provincial domain, which preserves aspects of Flemish daily life from the 17th century to the 1950s, will be the background for a contemporary mystery story. “In Hollywood, they would pay a fortune for such a setting,” said screenwriter Dirk Nielandt.

Ghent and Mortsel (in Antwerp province) will be the site of a pilot project for a new research project looking at pollution caused by chlorine in cities. Chlorine, in pure form a poisonous gas, is used in solvents in the dry-cleaning and printing industries. It is also in acid rain, PCBs and CFCs, responsible for the depletion of the ozone layer. The CityChlor project launched last week by the Flemish Public Waste Materials Agency (OVAM) will involve nine other western European agencies, which will research new methods of clean up and share their results.

A series of four oil paintings by Jan Breughel the Younger was sold last week at Christie’s in New York for $2.2 million (€1.5m). The paintings, depicting the four elements, were owned by the estate of King Leopold III. The sale caused some controversy, with one nationalist (N-VA) member of the Flemish parliament calling for action to keep the works in the country. The royal palace, however, claimed the sale was a private matter.

Train tickets may now be bought using ecocheques, the rail authority NMBS announced last week. Ecocheques are offered by some employers as part of a remuneration package, although the number of places that accept them remains limited. Some 550,000 people have so far received ecocheques worth a total of €110 million. Regular train tickets can be paid for with the cheques but not season tickets. And no change can be given.

Three snack food manufacturers are challenging the smoking ban in cafes before the Constitutional Court, claiming that the law, which forbids smoking anywhere that serves snacks, has caused their business to drop off by 60%. The companies claim many cafes prefer to give up serving food altogether rather than impose the ban.