We are very happy to announce that the lengthy process of reestablishing Osteogenesis Imperfecta Federation Europe (OIFE) in Belgium has now come to an end. OIFE is reestablished as a new legal entity in Belgium and dissolved as a legal entity in the Netherlands. 

Why did we do this?

The process started because we had major problems with our German bank. Both with security breaches, but also with daily limits, opening new accounts and making changes in general. The problems escalated since the OIFE has no physical office and Board members spread across the entire Europe. We also had issues with PayPal, and had to close both the German PayPal account and Portugese PayPal account, because we didn’t have EC-members in these countries.

After several attempts to find a new bank in the Netherlands and Norway, we realized that getting a new bank seemed more or less impossible without changing the country OIFE was registered in. Our original plan B was then to move OIFE as a legal entity from the Netherlands to Belgium. But after advise from lawyers in both the Netherlands and Belgium it turned out that this was not legally possible, because of lacking regulations.

So we had to move to plan C, which was reestablishing OIFE as a new legal entity in Belgium. This implied new Statutes according to Belgian law, renewal of membership from all our member organizations and the election of an interim Board which would replace the Executive Committee.

The formal reestablishment of the new OIFE took place online on March 8th 2022. The people in the former OIFE EC were elected as the interim Board. But before we could implement the new legal entity, we had to make sure all our member organizations were onboard. We also had to transfer all our assets and liabilities from the old OIFE to the new one. Something which turned out to be very time consuming and bureaucratic because of the German bank.

At our AGM on June 4th the member organizations approved the dissolution of OIFE as a legal entity in the Netherlands and gave the interim Board the authority to implement when assets and liabilities were transferred to the new legal entity.

What are the major changes?

The name, logo and mission of the OIFE is the same. So is our membership criteria. The statutes are more or less similar, but have some adaptations because of Belgian law. The only things that have changed are:

• OIFE Executive Committee (EC) has been renamed to The Board and will from October 23, 2022 have seven instead of five people.
• The OIFE General Assembly will not be called the Board, but will still have the same power and mandate, except from decisions regarding associate membership
• The contact persons of our member organizations will be called representatives, except when voting at our general assembly (where they are delegates).

Now it is all in place!

All our money has now been moved from the German bank to our new functional bank KBC in Belgium, which has English menus and is much more user friendly. OIFE as a legal entity in the Netherlands formally seized to exist on October 1st after the new OIFE (in Belgium) took over all assets and liabilities.

On October 23^rd our member organizations will come together to elect a new and expanded Board of seven people. We are happy that this bureaucratic process is over and look forward to using our time on OIFE’s mission and vision instead of bureaucratic hurdles and obstacles.

OIFE’s official postal address is OIFE, Schotelveldstraat 17, 2801 Heffen, Belgium
Official email: office@oife.org

Registration date: March 8, 2022

Registration number (KBO-number): BE0784600930 (also for VAT)

Our new bank details can be found here and our new Statutes can be found here.