De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek
‘The go-to team for larger and complex data protection matters’, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek is an expert in handling high-risk privacy and cybersecurity issues. The team focuses largely on public and private enforcement, regularly assisting clients with investigations and litigation. Follow-on mass claims civil litigation, data infringement, and cybersecurity incident responses are particular strengths of the group. Clients typically include multinational technology companies and online platforms. Geert Potjewijd leads the practice together with Axel Arnbak. Potjewijd specialises in complex multidisciplinary litigation and regulatory enforcement, while Arnbak is an expert in both privacy and cybersecurity matters. Arjan Kleinhout adds public law knowledge to the practice, and Mirjam van Dam assists in high-stake litigation.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
‘De Brauw's data protection team is absolutely the go-to team for larger and complex data protection matters. They master the subject matter and work closely with the litigation and mass claims team and as such they are excellently equipped to advise and litigate on data protection class actions. ’
‘On data protection I've mainly worked with Axel Arnbak. He is a seasoned and well known data protection lawyer and an amazing sparring partner. He is not only well aware of the latest trends in his field, he also has excellent in-depth knowledge of legal background, political sensitiveness, historic laws and cases etc. Regardless how complex the subject matter is, Axel masters the skill of explaining this in a super clear manner and quickly spots the sensitive topics.’
‘Due to the portfolio of clients and the legal (court) cases the team is involved in, it has a very good oversight of what is happening in the privacy field.’
‘Axel Arnbak is very knowledgeable with a practical approach.’
Key clients
- Salesforce, Inc.
- Meta Platforms, Inc.
- Uber Technologies, Inc.
- TikTok Technology Limited
- Public Interest Litigation Project (PILP)
Work highlights
- Acted as the lead counsel and trusted advisor for TikTok in a collective action initiated by three competing Dutch claim vehicles on behalf of TikTok users for alleged infringements of European data protection and consumer protection laws.
- Acted as counsel for Meta in mass claims litigation for alleged data protection violations related to its social media platform Facebook.
- Acted as lead counsel for Uber before Dutch courts in a landmark case and potential follow-on litigation about access to personal data, related information about automated decision making and the right to data portability under the GDPR.
Lawyers
Hall of Fame
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Leading individuals
Practice head
The lawyer(s) leading their teams.
Geert Potjewijd, Axel Arnbak