AKD

The firm: AKD is one of the largest law firms in the Benelux. With a team of approximately 270 committed lawyers, civil law notaries and tax lawyers, AKD delivers high quality legal services and tax matters in nearly all legal fields, based on a full-service approach. The firm’s client base varies from large multinational companies (whether stock-listed entities or family owned businesses) to high-net-worth individuals, from financial institutions to municipalities and hospitals.

Main areas of practice
Banking and finance: AKD advises a wide range of clients, including national and international corporate clients, banks and other financial institutions, private equity and venture capital investors, and hedge funds, on banking, finance, company law, national and international structuring and restructuring, and legal opinions.

Civil law notaries: AKD is a reliable and extremely experienced partner for clients requiring notarial services. At AKD, we have over thirty civil-law notaries, who cooperate closely with our lawyers wherever necessary.​​ This means that you can rely on us to provide you with a wide range of notarial services and solutions to your legal problems.

Commercial contracting: AKD’s expertise covers the international sale of goods and services, encompassing the structuring and optimisation of international commercial transactions: advising, contracting and dispute resolution.

Compliance and integrity: AKD’s compliance and integrity team regularly deals with a wide range of complex and occasionally sensitive compliance issues. Our advice and representation encompasses risk assessment, compliance assessment, compliance programmes, investigations, criminal, civil and enforcement matters, all in legal fields where the rules are subject to constant change.

Construction: AKD boasts one of the largest construction and real estate teams in the Netherlands. Its sheer size enables us to deploy lawyers to tackle every issue that affects your business. Through our considerable expertise and deep knowledge of the market, the team consistently provides assistance at the highest level.

Corporate/M&A: Our small and flexible teams in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg work successfully for domestic and foreign companies on strategic transactions, private equity deals, venture capital investments, restructurings and distressed M&A. Our team’s expertise extends to other areas of law and supervisory regulations relating to mergers and acquisitions, such as employee co-determination, transfer of undertaking, financing, security and ancillary restrictions.

Corporate criminal law: AKD’s criminal lawyers are skillful at handling a wide range of complex and sensitive criminal law cases involving large business and personal interests. They focus on offering a high level of reputation and risk management. They also conduct internal investigations and offer advice on criminal compliance issues.

Data protection and privacy: Enforcement powers available to privacy authorities in the Benelux are being expanded. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) pertains to all processing of personal data by data controllers and imposes strict conditions on the processing, transfer and security of personal data. AKD’s data protection and privacy team is happy to advise you as to whether your company’s data processing is privacy compliant.

Employment and pensions: AKD’s employment and pensions practice group encompasses a team of committed lawyers boasting comprehensive knowledge and experience. Our lawyers advise on and litigate cases involving employment contracts, dismissals, competition, confidentiality, collective labour agreements and employee participation, special employment relationships, transfer of undertaking, equal treatment, secondment, working hours, working conditions, minimum wage and other types of remuneration, holiday and leave, and more.

EU Law, Competition & Regulation: with over 25 years’ experience, our team advises and litigates on all facets of EU and Dutch competition law, including cartels, merger control, abuse of dominance, compliance, state aid and private damages litigation. Our team assists clients, including medium and large companies, the central government and decentralised public authorities, before domestic and European courts.

Government liability: Government liability is a complex field, a convergence of administrative law and compensation law. AKD sets itself apart through its unique combination of thorough knowledge of administrative law and special expertise in the field of (civil) compensation law.

Insurance: Our insurance team’s thorough knowledge of the market enables it to assist insurance companies, brokers and policyholders alike, in the Benelux countries and elsewhere. AKD has proven a particularly reliable partner for taking on cases involving transportation-related insurance law, liability, and policy and coverage disputes.

Intellectual property and IT: AKD’s intellectual property, ICT and privacy team is one of the largest and most specialised IP and IT teams in the Netherlands and Belgium. Our lawyers enjoy an excellent reputation both nationally and internationally. They litigate complex infringement disputes before national courts and all the way up to the European Court of Justice. AKD also boasts a dedicated trademark and design registration team whose sole aim is to look after your IP portfolio.

Investment management: Our investment management team can help you with legal advice on investment structures and guidance on investment institutions. These cover ‘umbrella funds’, private equity/venture capital funds, property funds, hedge funds, feeder funds and fund-of-funds. We specialise in setting up innovative investment structures and providing guidance through the authorisation processes with the relevant authorities for the financial markets.

Litigation: AKD boasts an extensive team comprising dozens of lawyers who excel at resolving business disputes. AKD advises and litigates on every possible dispute involving corporate law, including shareholders’ disputes, disputes between joint venture partners, inquiry procedures, corporate governance and participation disputes, group liability and directors’ and officers’ liability issues.

Private equity: AKD’s private equity team enjoys a strong reputation in the mid-market segment and counts various private equity funds, venture capital funds and large single-family offices among its clients, advising them on investments, exits, management participations and W&I aspects.

Private wealth: We provide advise to wealthy families, establish and manage family offices for the creation and management of their holding and operational companies and their charitable entities. We assist them for the taking of tailor-made and strategic decisions in close cooperation with their other specialist advisors in Belgium and abroad. This includes complex securities portfolios, art and real estate.

Projects and infrastructure: AKD’s project and infrastructure team consists of a multi-disciplinary team of lawyers, civil-law notaries and tax advisers, well equipped to deal with projects across multiple sectors in all key jurisdictions. Our integrated global network provides full-service capabilities to clients in key markets and can advise on the regulatory, corporate, financing, public law, tax, arbitration and commercial litigation aspects of both domestic and cross-border projects.

Public law: AKD boasts one of the largest administrative law teams in the Benelux. We advise and litigate on behalf of the public sector and semi-public institutions as well as on behalf of companies. A full-service firm, AKD is able to muster all the expertise needed to tackle every administrative dispute imaginable, ranging from local and provincial government law to water authorities legislation, from tax law and administrative fines to obligations to tolerate, and from orders subject to penalties and administrative coercion to municipal measures in the social domain.

Public procurement: From our Brussels office, we have been advising and litigating on all facets of procurement law for 20 years. Our clients are the central government and decentralised public authorities, public law institutions and medium and large enterprises.

Real estate: Boasting one of the largest real estate teams in the Netherlands and a solid Real Estate team in Belgium, AKD is able to deploy specialist lawyers to address all key aspects of your business. You can trust AKD’s experts to be up to speed with all innovations in your market and aware of any legal and contractual implications.

Restructuring and insolvency: AKD’s restructuring and insolvency team has time and again proven a reliable and experienced partner in complex situations. We have been involved in nearly all major insolvencies in the Netherlands, either as trustees (in the bankruptcy of Imtech, for example) or as advisors. The firm is equipped to assist companies in financial distress with restructuring and refinancing issues, issues related to selling off secured assets as well as cases of post-bankruptcy D&O liability.

Supreme Court litigation: Conducting Supreme Court litigation calls for specific expertise. Having amassed dozens of years of expertise handling litigation in the lower courts, AKD’s specialists will now ply their trade in the Dutch Supreme Court as well. They will litigate matters spanning the full breadth of civil law and civil procedural law, including matters involving local, regional or national government authorities.

Tax: From our Benelux offices, AKD’s tax lawyers are faced with the job of ensuring that tax regulation changes have the least possible adverse impact on the commercial activities and asset management of their clients, businesses and high-net-worth individuals alike. We accomplish this by developing in-depth knowledge of all tax matters, be it corporate tax, dividends tax, income and PAYE taxes or transfer tax.

Transport and trade: AKD’s transport and trade team enjoys an excellent reputation worldwide for its risk management expertise and ability to come up with legal solutions. Our specialists have a clear understanding of opportunity versus risk and have been involved in many ground-breaking cases.

International work: with offices in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, AKD offers integrated, independent and international legal and tax services in stable jurisdictions. Business arrangements, financial structures and digitalisation readily transcend international boundaries. The firm’s specialists look across borders and beyond the confines of their own disciplines in order to ensure seamless end-to-end service.

AKD is the exclusive member firm in the Netherlands for Interlaw, the premium international association of independent law firms with lawyers in nearly 80 jurisdictions and more than 130 cities worldwide (www.interlaw.org).

AKD also has an Asia Desk, German Desk, Turkish Desk and USA Desk, all of which form fully integrated teams that assist its clients in their global activities from start to finish.