Arnoud R Willems

Practice Areas

Arnoud Willems is a partner in the International Commercial & Trade Practice Group in the Brussels office. He joined Baker McKenzie in 2022. He has an extensive network, built over 30 years, as a trusted adviser of entrepreneurs, executives and diplomats. Arnoud has a deep understanding of how trade rules shape global flows of capital, investment, goods, technology and services.

Arnoud advises clients on all aspects of trade and customs, especially with respect to competitiveness, and the application of WTO law and other trade rules to various sectors. As a result, Arnoud has helped remove trade barriers, unlock new markets, increase profits, decrease costs and risks, and improve compliance.

Arnoud helps clients to navigate through complex rules, and in their decision-making processes, manage their risks and become more successful and proactive in their long-term planning and strategy. He strives to make legal rules understandable for company decision makers, look for practical solutions, break new ground, close legal gaps, and get regulators to adapt and clarify rules to make them more useful, predictable, uniform, and, where possible, create new rules.

In the field of trade defence, i.e., anti-dumping, anti-subsidy / countervailing, safeguards, and anti-circumvention investigations, Arnoud has assisted complainants, respondents, associations, governments, importers, and users in more than 200 high-profile cases. Along with representing clients in such cases before the European Commission and the EU courts, he has worked on several third-country cases like Russia, China and Türkiye, and has also assisted with crafting WTO arguments. In 2010, one client referred to Arnoud as "the perfect anti-dumping payer's bulldog" (The Legal 500 EMEA).

Regarding customs matters, Arnoud has a broad experience in advising clients on EU customs issues, including entry, classification, valuation, origin, tariff suspensions, authorisations, audits, refunds/remissions and fraud allegations, notably OLAF and EPPO. A key aspect of his practice concerns the involvement of EU institutions in helping companies unlock customs issues in EU member states or assisting such companies in resolving differences in approaches between various EU member states.

In relation to trade agreements, Arnoud advises clients on leveraging market access and enforcement tools provided by trade rules in the WTO, free trade, investment and other agreements. With these tools, Arnoud has helped companies address key trade and regulatory barriers affecting their ability to move, sell and protect goods, services, and intellectual property across borders. Arnoud has also assisted in negotiating trade agreements, especially in making them concrete, and by creating so-called gold standards by leveraging best practices.

In the field of trade controls, i.e., economic sanctions, export controls and foreign direct investment controls, Arnoud helps companies to develop and implement compliance programs, conduct internal audits, and act against enforcement actions.

Arnoud appears regularly before administrative bodies, courts in various EU member states and the European courts.

Often, his cases involve pan-European strategies with simultaneous litigation in several countries. Since 1995, Arnoud has been a leading advocate of companies challenging EU anti-dumping regulations, with an exceptional success rate in such cases before the European courts, enabling his clients to obtain significant duty refunds.

Professional Memberships

- Asian Institute of International Financial Law (AIIFL) – Senior fellow

- Rotary Club Tervuren (Brussels) – Former president

- Various universities e.g., the University of Maastricht, the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Hong Kong University Law School – Guest lecturer

- Commission on Customs and Trade Facilitation of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris – Member

- Commission on Trade and Investment Policy of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris – Member

- International Law Association – Member

- International Bar Association (Trade Committee) – Member

Publications

Co-author, "Towards a Strategic Partnership – Strengthening Trade Relations between the GCC and the EU", GPCA's Insight Express, July 2022.

Co-author, "The EU's 'Greened' Injury Margin: a Closer Look at Law and Practice", International Trade Law and Regulation, Volume 27, Issue 3, July 2022.

Co-author, "Inward Processing in EU Anti-Dumping Proceedings", Global Trade and Customs Journal, Volume 17, Issue 6, May 2022.

Co-author, "Helping Sustainable Trade: Ways to 'Green' the Harmonized System", Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), January 2021.

Expert in these Jurisdictions

Belgium

Languages Spoken

English, Dutch

Education