Mr Vincent Wellens > NautaDutilh > Luxembourg, Luxembourg > Lawyer Profile

Combining a strong overarching financial services regulatory offering with a compelling tech practice group, NautaDutilh is well-placed to advise start-ups, established entities and banks across a wide array of fintech-related matters impacting their businesses. Josée Weydert skilled at advising on crypto asset trading, as well as providing advice to clients surrounding the new EU regulation for issuers and crypto-asset service providers – Markets in Crypto Assets Regulation (MICAR). Tech law expert Vincent Wellens co-heads the fintech offering alongside Weydert, and as well as regularly advising on regulatory and licensing issues, he also handles a considerable amount of work on IT-related outsourcing and digitisation projects.

Under the expert leadership of Vincent Wellens, NautaDutilh has established a pre-eminent position in the market across a range of IT/outsourcing and data protection matters, in particular. The team’s outsourcing offering includes work for both suppliers and end users (including banks), while for data protection, its involvement for both private and public sector clients includes both compliance and litigation before the supervisory authorities. Litigation also informs much of the firm’s IP-related mandates, with Wellens ‘extremely knowledgeable about national, European and international case law’, including as it relates to trade mark litigation.

In somewhat of a rebuilding phase following the departure in June 2024 of former team head Antoine Laniez to CMS Luxembourg, NautaDutilh is, for the time being, co-headed headed by IP expert Vincent Wellens and corporate/insolvency specialist Romain Sabatier. The team, nevertheless, maintains a solid pipeline of commercial litigation (including shareholders’ disputes) and international arbitration matters, particularly in the context of the enforcement of arbitral awards. The arrival in December 2023 of senior associate Ottavio Covolo from Clifford Chance also provides the firm with added IP/tech litigation bandwidth, as well as more broadly on the commercial litigation front.