Partner, Loyens & Loeff
Bert heads the Loyens & Loeff Indirect Tax Practice Group in Belgium and the International Trade Team. He is a core member of the Loyens & Loeff Corporate Investigations team and co-head of the Food and Beverages Team.
He advises his clients on matters related to international and domestic exchange of goods and services. Matters such as international trade measures, customs valuation, origin, classification, export controls and economic sanctions, excise duties and VAT are familiar parts of his practice.
Bert assists his clients by drafting compliance programmes, giving training courses, as well as by performing internal scans and audits. He represents clients before the Belgian and Dutch authorities and courts as well as before the European Commission, its advisory committees and the Court of Justice of the European Union. He has significant experience in counselling clients involved in (criminal) investigations related to their international trade activities.
Bert worked in the Loyens & Loeff Singapore office and was seconded to the International Trade group of a large US law firm. He therefore has extensive experience in advising Asian and US companies on tax and trade aspects of their foreign investments.
Bert is the co-founder and scientific coordinator of the blog www.worldtradecontrols.com (in cooperation with ICC Belgium, VBO and the US law firm Bryan Cave LLP) and is a regular speaker at international conferences. He also lectures at the UCLL in Leuven.
