Deloitte Legal

EU Competition and EU Regulatory

Hendrik is head of the Competence Centre European Law

Hendrik Viaene joined in September 2018. Prior to that, he headed the European Competition practice at Stibbe.

Hendrik is a litigator who frequently assists clients before national courts as well as the European Court of Justice.

His practice focusses on state aid law, cartels, licensing agreements, merger reviews, abuse of dominance cases, and distribution agreements.

Hendrik assists governments as well as privately and publicly owned companies.

He frequently represents companies before national competition authorities and before the European Commission, either as a complainant or as a defendant, in state aid, cartel, merger, and abuse of dominance investigations. Based on his vast experience, he also assists governments and companies on defence strategies as well as compliance programmes to avoid fines or having to refund or recover state aid.

Specifically with regard to mergers, Hendrik has successfully assisted clients as notifying party or as complainant, both in first and in second phase investigations.

Hendrik Viaene also counsels clients on compliance audits, immunity and leniency initiatives, and general risk avoidance in relation to competition law.

He frequently is called upon by clients to advise on patent and other intellectual property rights licensing initiatives in light of restrictions imposed by competition law.

His clients are governments, government owned entities and publicly or privately held companies. Hendrik has assisted clients in many sectors of the economy, such as energy, chemicals, paints, automotive, financial data, recycling and waste management, telecom, construction, renewables, media, private equity, financial industry, etc.