ALTIUS

Partners: Marie Brasseur, Kirian Claeyé, Philippe de Jong, Sven Demeulemeester, Philippe De Wulf, Grégory Ernes, Alexander Hansebout, Bart Heynickx, Lieven Peeters, Christophe Ronse, William Timmermans, Gerrit Vandendriessche, Stijn Van Schel, Tom Vantroyen, Carmen Verdonck, Jérôme Vermeylen, Olivier Vrins

Number of partners: 17

Number of other lawyers: 65

Firm Overview:

ALTIUS is one of the largest Belgian independent law firms. Established in Brussels, the firm advises Belgian and international companies on the legal aspects of transactions, projects and disputes. For all tax related issues, ALTIUS maintains an operational relationship with the niche firm Tiberghien.

ALTIUS helps its clients navigate through often-complex legislation and regulatory environments and provide clear solutions to a wide range of legal issues. In addition to its specialist legal knowledge, ALTIUS focuses on thinking creatively with its clients to offer tailor-made solutions. ALTIUS’s aim is to turn, through careful listening and awareness, strategic questions into clear, straightforward answers.

Main Areas of Practice:

Corporate & M&A: The team covers a broad range of national and international transaction-related legal services to companies in various industry sectors. The team has an impressive track record in both national and cross-border mergers and acquisitions and divestments, auctions, joint-ventures, corporate real-estate transactions and corporate restructurings.

IP: The team advises key players in the pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, agri-food, healthcare, media and entertainment industries. In addition to an extensive track record of representing clients in complex patent litigation and illicit trade matters, it has substantial experience in dealing with Belgian and EU regulatory issues, including data exclusivity, pricing and reimbursement, advanced therapies, repackaging of parallel-imported products, clinical trials, advertising and the marketing of food and plant reproductive materials. The team also has extensive experience in trademarks, trade and domain names, copyright, software and database rights, geographical indications and designations of origin, industrial designs, trade secrets and know-how.

Life Sciences: The team has a proven track record advising clients on contentious and non-contentious matters in the life sciences and healthcare industries, especially regarding intellectual property and data protection, marketing of medicinal products, pricing and reimbursement and medical devices.

Banking & Finance: The team focuses on pure banking and finance work such as leveraged and acquisition finance, project finance, capital markets, structured commodities, export finance, asset finance, asset-backed securities and financial services. It has particularly strong relationships with international banks and financial institutions. It also handles restructuring and bankruptcy issues and other insolvency procedures.

Commercial: The team has developed solid experience in commercial agreements, trade practices, consumer protection, advertising, labelling and unfair competition practices. It regularly assists Belgian and international clients in the development of complex networks and modes of distribution, taking into account the Belgian and European laws regulating distribution, agency, franchising, distance selling and e-commerce.

Dispute Resolution: The team covers all the aspects of dispute resolution, including arbitration and alternative dispute resolution, enforcement of foreign judgements and arbitral awards, corporate litigation. Its lawyers are qualified to appear before the Belgian courts and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Competition: The team has an excellent reputation in all aspects of competition law including merger control, joint-ventures, cartel investigations, the establishment and operation of distribution systems, the licensing and use of intellectual property rights and abuses of dominant positions. It also provides assistance during dawn-raids and in the setting–up of compliance programmes and trainings.

Sports: The team assists clients with highly specialised advice and legal services based on a sound knowledge of the regulations of the various national and international sports federations and their specific arbitration procedures.

ICT: The team assists hardware manufacturers, software developers, system integrators, e-commerce players, telecommunications operators and suppliers of other ICT-related services, such as consulting, support and maintenance services. It advises on data protection, ICT contracts and e-commerce, digital signatures, trade practice matters, including (online) advertising and general commercial law.

Employment: The team works with Belgian and international clients on all sorts of employment-related issues and offers day to day advice on the employment law aspects of running a business in Belgium. It has a particularly good reputation for handling cross-border employment, service agreements, collective labour law, collective dismissals, the employment law consequences of the winding up of companies and employment law litigation.

Real Estate: The team advises a wide range of clients on all matters of real estate law, also on zoning, permits, PPP, public procurement and litigation. Its expertise ranges from stand-alone office buildings, shopping centres and logistics centres to niche products such as senior citizen housing, healthcare facilities, hotels and sports and leisure centres.

Regulatory: The team specialises in regulatory matters and administrative law, including zoning, energy and environmental law, public procurement and PPP. The team also handles litigation regarding real estate and administrative law, and represents clients before the ordinary courts, the Constitutional Court and the Council of State.

Insolvency & Restructuring: The team assists clients with various issues of insolvency law and in the context of restructurings. It advises clients in obtaining judicial protection, taking over assets and businesses in going concern from companies under judicial protection. It also has experience in defending clients’ interest when business partners are on the verge of insolvency or are applying for judicial protection against creditors. It also handles recovering claims from companies under judicial protection or bankrupt companies.