Van Bael & Bellis

EU and German competition law and EU trade law

Counsel Katharina Bongs focuses on EU and German competition law and EU trade law. 

EU Competition Law

Katharina represents clients in German and EU cartel and merger control cases. She acts before the European Commission, the EU Court of Justice and in national competition proceedings. She has experience advising in cartel defence cases, including leniency and settlement proceedings. Furthermore, she assists clients on how to structure their agreements to ensure competition law compliance and organises customised EU and German competition law compliance programmes. She deals with cases in a range of sectors, including intellectual property, industrial products, waste management and recycling.

​Trade & Customs Law

In the field of trade law, Katharina specialises in EU customs law. Her expertise extends to advising clients on multi-jurisdictional customs matters, including classification, origin and valuation issues. She has experience in the field of duty suspensions, quotas, customs compliance and OLAF proceedings. She represents clients before national customs administrations, German courts and the European Commission.

Katharina is also part of the regulatory team and routinely deals with legal questions involving chemicals. 

Katharina is qualified as a German lawyer.

 Prior to joining Van Bael & Bellis, in the course of her legal training, she worked, notably, at the Cologne office of a large German commercial law firm dealing with distribution law mainly in the automotive sector and EU law, with the German Federal Ministry of Economics dealing with anti-dumping measures and with the German Embassy in Oslo.

Katharina Bongs speaks German, English, French and Spanish.

Member of the Düsseldorf and Brussels Bars

College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium – Master in European Legal Studies, 2007 Qualified as German lawyer, 2006 University of Bonn, Germany – Law Degree, 2002 University of Salamanca, Spain University of Trier, Germany – Diploma in International Law Studies in Anglo-American and French Law, 1999