Newsflashes

American lawyer joins Balance

We are extremely pleased to welcome American lawyer Laurie de Vries to our team. After practising law in New York State for several years, Laurie relocated to the Netherlands fourteen years ago and elected to continue her career in the field of legal translation. Her work for her former employer, a renowned international tax firm, permitted her to gain a wealth of experience in translating tax-related texts, and she is now Balance's in-house specialist in the field. About her career, Laurie notes, "Tax has been my passion since the earliest days of my legal studies. The intricacy and constant evolution of this area of law keep my translations dynamic, and the parallels and differences between various countries' tax systems are fascinating".

This is not to suggest that she shies away from "hard" legal texts; the translation of procedural documents, notarial deeds and similar texts are part of her daily workload. In short, Laurie is an excellent addition to our team, offering our firm indispensable support.

Balance has a new website

On our homepage, you can see at a glance who our main clients are, the type of texts we translate and the members of our team. The new domain name of Balance texts & translations and Balance juridica is Balance2.nl. This domain name is shorter than the old name: Balancetranslations.com. Balance2 stands for 2 locations (P.C. Hooftstraat 21 in Amsterdam and Wilhelminasingel 104 in Maastricht), 2 areas of expertise (legal/commercial and general/technical) and the balance between your text and our translation.

The web design, photography and text advice for the new site were provided by Walter Goyen of LIQUA Text & Design, Amersfoort, www.liqua.nl.

Translation tour de force by Balance

In April 2008, the governors of the five partner regions in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion (the Belgian provinces of Limburg and Liège, the German-speaking community of Belgium, the Aachen region, and the Dutch Province of Limburg) held consultations about tackling the cross-border drugs problem and the related criminality. They subsequently instructed professors Cyrille Fijnaut and Brice De Ruyver to analyse the problem and to draw up a plan of approach to tackle drug-related crime in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion.

In view of the size of the report drawn up by the professors (almost 75,000 words), the language combinations (German and French), the content (administrative and legal), the extreme confidentiality and, moreover, the tight deadline (three working weeks), the clients contacted Balance translation agency. In close collaboration with the authors, Balance's German and French sections completed the entire project in record time to the complete satisfaction of the clients. One of them described this assignment as "a real tour de force by Balance".

On Friday 14 November, the report ("A proposal for the joint management of drugs-related criminality in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion") was presented to the responsible ministers (Justice and the Interior) in the Euroregion countries (Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands). In addition, the report was handed to approximately 80 representatives of public authorities, the police and the public prosecution services that the investigators spoke to in the various regions and countries. During the presentation, Professor Fijnaut was full of praise for the work performed by Balance.
www.euregio-mr.org

Balance wins European contract

INTERREG IVB Northwest Europe (NWE) is the popular name for an Objective-3 programme (European Territorial Cooperation) funded by the European Commission's European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The purpose of the programme, which is part of the European Structural Funds, is to make NWE more competitive, environmentally friendly and cohesive. More than EUR 355 million in ERDF funding will be allocated to the most innovative and ambitious projects between 2007 and 2013. The work will be coordinated by the Technical Secretariat in Lille (France).

Earlier this year, NWE put out a call inviting translation companies to tender for the Technical Secretariat's translation work. As it was an official European procurement procedure, it attracted tenders from an exceptionally large number of translation companies across Europe.

Companies bid on one or more of the following lots:
• lot 1 (French-English and vice versa)
• lot 2 (English-German and vice versa)
• lot 3 (English-Dutch and vice versa)
• lot 4 (French-Dutch and vice versa)

In late August, NWE announced that it had awarded the contract for lots 2, 3 and 4 to Balance texts & translations.

NWE cited the company's proven track record in the relevant language combinations, the experience it has acquired since 1998 in translating specialist spatial planning and water management texts, and - last but certainly not least - the quality of its translators. Another trump card mentioned by NWE was Balance juridica's expertise in the field of legal translation.

The project has now begun, and Balance's translators have got down to work on the first batch of texts.
www.nweurope.eu