RB Legal | Ruessmann, Beck & Co.

RB Legal | Ruessmann Beck & Co is a multinational team of strong and well-recognised European lawyers,with a strong focus on trade and regulatory matters. They assist clients from several industries and sectors primarily in trade defence, customs, export control and sanctions matters, and with a wide range of trade-related regulatory matters. The international trade team has already been involved in many milestone cases.

• Laurent Ruessmann Partner
• Jochen BeckPartner
• Kristiyana Drandarova Senior Associate
• Pieter Van VaerenberghAssociate

RB Legal | Ruessmann Beck & Co offers tailored legal solutions based on a deep understanding of clients' industries and strategic objectives. The firm’s core team has worked together for over a decade, bringing more than 50 years of combined experience in high-stakes trade and regulatory cases across various industries and sectors. With their wealth of experience, RB Legal addresses their client’s challenges by understanding their individual circumstances and offering them tailor-made advice and pragmatic as well as effective solutions.

RB Legalis recognised as a leader in assisting EU producers regarding the use of trade defence instruments (TDIs) in relation to unfairly traded imports. Two recent landmark representations were the team’s work for EU glass fibre reinforcements and glass fibre fabrics producers in anti-subsidy cases, resulting in the imposition of the first EU countervailing measures against subsidies granted by China to Chinese state-owned companies in relation to operations located outside China.

Trade remedies

The Group’s core practice focus is on international trade, in particular matters relating to trade defence (anti-dumping, anti-subsidy and safeguards), including advisory work, assistance in the preparation of complaints and requests, and assistance in investigations. RB Legal also assists clients in providing input into the EU legislative process, and in representation in European Court litigation. The team is especially unique because of its recognised position as a leader in assisting EU producers, in particular in relation to unfairly traded imports from third countries.Clients have called them "the stars for complainant work" and "a powerhouse on the producer's side" and "the crème de la crème of trade practitioners".

Customs

The team assists clients in implementing duty recovery projects, and more generally in all questions of customs classification, valuation and origin before the administrative authorities of the EU Member States and technical expert committees chaired by the Commission, as well as in litigation before national and EU courts.

Export Controls and Sanctions

In the area of export controls and sanctions, RB Legal has been particularly busy advising existing and new clients intensively on the continuously evolving EU Russia sanctions.More generally, they help companies ensure compliance with the respective regulations of the EU and key Member States. For example, our Group provides classification advice and assists with clarification requests in relation to products and technology; it advises on the interpretation and application of export and end-use controls in relation to physical exports, intra-EU transfers and technology transfers; and it advises on all EU sanctions regimes.The Group further assists multinational companies in the establishment, implementation and maintenance of internal compliance programmes under EU laws, in communications with authorities, and in challenges before the EU courts.

Market access and other trade-related regulatory areas

RB Legal assists industries with various market access matters under EU and WTO law. They cover a wide range of topics such as preferential market access (e.g. GATT, free trade agreements, GSP) and trade-related regulatory issues, including product safety, due diligence and other supply chain matters (e.g. conflict minerals, deforestation, CITES), energy (e.g. eco-design, CBAM, NZIA), environment (e.g. waste and packaging), and intellectual property rights (e.g. TRIPs).

2019 – 2020

The first anti-subsidy investigations where the EU countervailed subsidies granted both by the local government and those from a third country government (China) also directly subsidising the local production

2018 – 2019

The first anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations of imports of electric vehicles (e-bikes)

2016 – 2017

The complex work to ensure that the EU does not grant China market economy status and to help shape the EU's new anti-dumping methodology for imports from China

2012 – 2013

The largest trade cases in any country ever (over €20 billion of imports)

2010 – 2011

The EU's first anti-subsidy case against imports from China and the first time any country initiated simultaneous anti-dumping, anti-subsidy and safeguard investigations of the same product from the same country

RB Legal | Ruessmann Beck & Co

Your expert advisor for EU trade and regulatory law

Bastion Tower (12th floor)

5 Place du Champ de Mars / Marsveldplein 5

1050 Brussels, Belgium