The Legal 500

Within Competition, tier 4

Crowell & Moring’s increasingly popular five-strong team is spearheaded by Werner Berg and Thomas De Meese, and has good relationships with key clients, notably AT&T, Nestlé and Telenet, with a balanced approach to merger control, sectoral inquiries, and behavioural competition instructions. The firm is ‘very impressive and on top of key issues’, being ‘very capable, likeable, and collegiate lawyers’.

Within Corporate and M&A , tier 5

Crowell & Moring’s Emmanuel Gybels acts for a significant number of medium-sized companies and on local aspects of larger transactions, mainly in the media, defence and biotech sectors. He is described as a ‘solid veteran in his field’. The firm provides a ‘very good overall level of service, fast response times, very good advice, and good coverage for our issues’ say clients.

Within Customs, trade, WTO and anti-dumping, Crowell & Moring LLP is a third tier firm,

Crowell & Moring is praised for ‘very good service’ in the areas of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy law, customs law, unilateral and bilateral trade remedies as well as market access strategies, across a real client spectrum, from traditional manufacturing to advanced optical media storage. Robert MacLean, plus one associate, left to join Squire, Sanders & Dempsey (UK) LLP. Emmanuel Gybels, managing partner, is now the firm’s Brussels contact. Clients include Rio Tinto.

Within EU regulatory: Information technology, Crowell & Moring LLP is a first tier firm,

Crowell & Moring’s lawyers deliver a ‘pragmatic approach with clear and guiding opinions’. Flip Petillion has an excellent domain names practice.

Within Information technology, Crowell & Moring LLP is a second tier firm,

Crowell & Moring’s Thomas De Meese ‘is the anchorman of the firm’s IT practice’. He is ‘bright, with excellent knowledge, but also business-minded, creative and to the point’; the team’s work is ‘accurate, creative, and solution-driven’. The team was bolstered by Bart Lieben’s arrival from Laga, given his experience on domain names, including GTLD issues. ICANN (the internet’s global registry and watchdog) is a client. IT contracting issues, on behalf of software companies and purchasers alike, are handled for clients, as are e-commerce issues.

Within Intellectual property, Crowell & Moring LLP is a second tier firm,

Crowell & Moring present ‘an excellent resource and counsel’ to their IP clients. Flip Petillion and Jan-Diederik Lindemans are ‘real specialists, who study our situation a lot, and listen attentively’. Kristof Roox has ‘good knowledge of the pharma industry; he is well connected’. The team’s complex hi-tech patent litigation practice, for a variety of pharmaceutical companies, extends to asserting the IP rights in various molecules (ropivacaine, salmeterol and clopidogrel). 2010 saw the addition of counsel Bart Lieben, known for his IP work in the IT field, especially on domain names, plus two associates. Clients include Sandoz and Filoform.

Within Media and entertainment, Crowell & Moring LLP is a third tier firm,

Crowell & Moring’s Thomas De Meese and Filip Petillion have a high-level sports law practice, particularly for clients including Eddy Merckx Cycles. They are equally well fêted for experience in online gaming and betting services, on a domestic and European level. The team represented singer Helmut Lotti in litigation following the unauthorized reproduction of his wife’s artistic nude portrait in Belgium’s biggest newspaper, against copyright.