Intellectual property, ICT and privacy

Partner

Johan Van Driessche

Johan Van Driessche graduated with honours with a master’s degree in law at the Roman Catholic University of Leuven and has been a lawyer since 1997.

Johan has been a partner at Everest Advocaten in Ghent since 2015 and is head of a department which specialises in commercial and company law and contracts and liability law. He also has a special interest and expertise in IT law.

Johan assists companies and their directors by giving advice, editing contracts, and helping with disputes and conflicts, which may or may not be part of judicial proceedings. He has an extensive track record and a sound knowledge in company and commercial law. He looks for solutions and attaches great importance to providing judicial service which optimises the commercial interests of the company.

Johan was a recognised mediator in civil affairs and commercial affairs and has an accreditation for collective negotiations. Moreover, he is also appointed regularly as a liquidator for bankrupt companies by the Court of Commerce in Ghent.

He provides training courses for agencies such as Kluwer.

Johan Van Driessche has been entrusted with various mandates within the structures of the bar. Amongst other things, he was treasurer of the Council of the Oudenaarde Bar from 2006 to 2011 and director of the Association of Flemish Bars (OVB) from 2011 to 2017. He is currently still a director at Diplad, the IT integrator of the OVB and the bars.

Partner

Joris Deene

Joris Deene graduated in 2002 with major distinction with a master’s degree in law at the University of Ghent. In 2004, he did postgraduate studies in internatinal copyright law at the University of Amsterdam (IVIR). Joris was a researcher at the Centre for Jurist & Informatics of the University of Ghent (2004-2010) and currently lectures there in intellectual property and new technology.

Joris sits on the Council of Intellectual Property which advises the Belgian minister for Economy on intellectual property rights. He is also a third-party decider for .be domain name disputes at CEPANI.

Joris Deene is a partner at Everest and specialises in ICT law, intellectual property law and privacy law. He is the author of dozens of contributions and articles and is a popular speaker at seminars and conferences on these topics.

Partner

Bertrand Vandevelde

Bertrand Vandevelde started his career as an IT specialist in Brussels and Luxembourg.  In February 2007 he became a member of the Brussels Bar. During his law studies, he did internships in Brussels, Paris and Brooklyn law firms.

He joined Everest Brussels as a Partner in July 2023.  He is a specialist in ICT and Privacy law.  He assists his Belgian and French clients in their daily business in the areas of IT & Tech complex contracts, telco, e-commerce, (Open source) software licences, liability of Internet intermediary service providers, cybersecurity and cybercrime, intellectual property, domain names, online harassment, online disinformation, media law, right to be forgotten and right to disconnect, outsourcing, procurement, e-signature, data law and AI, and all topics related to those specializations.  He also acts as Data Protection Officer.

Bertrand is a member of the American Bar Association, the ADIJ (Association pour le Développement de l’Informatique Juridique), DPO PRO and the Internet Society.

He is also a guest lecturer at HELB Prigogine, where he teaches digital law to computer science students.  Finally, he is a CAPA computer science teacher at the Brussels Bar (CAPA, standing for Certificate of competence for the profession of lawyer).

Partner

Valentine Pacco

Valentine Pacco obtained a master’s degree in law at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve in 2014. After that, she continued her studies with an European master’s degree in law and economics.

She has been a lawyer at the Brussels bar since 2015 and works at the Brussels office of Everest.

Valentine Pacco practises mainly intellectual property, ICT and privacy law, corporate law and contracts, and company law.

Junior associate

Kobe Boecquaert

Kobe Boecquaert graduated cum laude as a Master of Laws at Ghent University in 2021. Subsequently, he pursued a Master of Intellectual Property and ICT Law at KU Leuven, which he also completed cum laude in 2022.

Since then, he has been a lawyer at the Ghent Bar and joined the Everest law firm in Ghent.

Kobe works within broad corporate law and has a particular interest in intellectual property rights, ICT and data law, M&A and business-related agreements.

Junior associate

Thomas Grandjean

Thomas Grandjean obtained his master’s degree in law with honours at the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve in 2020 and is graduated (LL.M. in Intellectual Property law) at the Maastricht University in 2021.

He then worked for a year in a boutique consulting firm specializing in compliance.

In September 2022, Thomas joined Everest Law Brussels.  He is mainly involved in commercial law, company law and intellectual property law.