AKD

Tax

Partner

Werner Heyvaert is a partner at AKD. He has over 30 years of experience in Belgian and international tax law and specialises in corporate tax work (institutional and transactional as well as contentious).

Werner advises and supports clients in a wide variety of industry sectors, including banking and finance (incl. insurance), building and construction, pharmaceutical, technology, energy, professional services, utilities, and private equity. His clients appreciate his pragmatic approach combined with in-depth expertise and his responsiveness.

The first 13 years of his career, Werner worked for a major Benelux law firm as a tax specialist in Antwerp, Amsterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg and New York. In 2000, he settled as a lawyer in Brussels. Before joining AKD, he co-headed Jones Day’s Belgian and EU tax practice in Brussels for nine years.

Werner is very active in a number of international and local associations and networks, such as the American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium (AmCham), the Belgian Association of Tax Lawyers (BATL), the International Fiscal Association (IFA) and the International Bar Association (IBA).

Werner is a frequent speaker at Belgian, European and international tax conferences and seminars and he has written numerous articles and contributions on Belgian, European and international tax law (most recently in the Tijdschrift voor Fiscaal Recht (TFR) and the IBFD’s European Taxation). In January 2018, the Advocate General with the Belgian Court of Cassation explicitly referred to one of Werner’s publications on the prevention of double taxation under the Belgian-Dutch tax treaty, and the Court sided with Werner’s position, as advised by the AG. In the slipstream of LuxLeaks the Special Committee on Tax Rulings of the European Parliament (TAXE) called upon Werner in 2015 as one of the Belgian experts on tax rulings.