Gerben Pauwels has been a Belgian company lawyer since 1997. As of 2016, he is the Group General Counsel of Argenta. Argenta is one of the strongest brands on the Belgian financial market, both for banks and for insurance companies with substantial activities in the Netherlands and Luxemburg. Argenta has a strong credit rating and a status of one of the safest banks under supervision of the European Central Bank.

Gerben has experience in all aspects of running an inhouse legal and fiscal department of a large financial institution. He has advanced knowledge of European and Belgian competition law, including anti-trust, concentrations, abuse of dominance and state aid. This experience is based both on working in the financial sector and his mandate since 2013 as ‘assessor’ in the Belgian Competition Authority (layman judge in the decision taking panel). He is also the representative of the Belgian banking sector in various international institutions.

Gerben holds a law degree from the University of Leuven (Belgium) and, among others, a postgraduate degree as executive master in law and AI.

Gerben is the author of various publications in the field of this legal expertise and the winner of the Belgian Legal Award ‘contribution to the profession of company lawyer of the year’ in 2007.