Wannes Vandenbussche

Wannes is an Of Counsel in the Belgian Litigation, Arbitration & Investigations practice.  He specializes in domestic and cross-border litigation and national and international arbitration. His areas of expertise include (extra-)contractual liability disputes, consumer protection, collective redress and enforcement actions.

He is an accredited mediator with the Belgian Mediation Commission. He is regularly called upon to provide expert opinions on complex issues in Belgian, European and international procedure, evidence and torts.

Work highlights

• Acted for a financial services provider in a number of disputes following a third-party attachment order against one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds.
• Represented various medical device manufacturers in connection with product liability claims.
• Assisted clients in various enforcement actions, including on the basis of an attachment on an undivided estate.
• Advised a credit institution on the cross-border effects of a collective settlement agreement.

Wannes is an assistant professor at Ghent University, where he teaches courses on advanced civil procedure and international and European procedure.

He is a board member of three Belgian (RW, P&B, NJW) and one Dutch (NTBR) peer-reviewed law journals and editor-in-chief of the Belgian Commentary on Judicial Law (‘Comm.Ger.’) and the volumes on civil procedure of the International Encyclopedia of Laws (IEL).

He was a member of the commission charged with the reform of the Belgian civil code, contributing to “Book 8: Evidence”.

He is a regular speaker at national and international conferences.

Wannes is the author of > 75 publications in the field of civil procedure, evidence, torts, contracts and ADR. His work, in particular his monograph on the burden of proof in tort proceedings, has already been cited in the opinions of the Advocates General of the Supreme Court of both Belgium and the Netherlands.

He is a member of several international networks, including the International Association of Procedural law (IAPL) and the European Law Institute (ELI).

Wannes holds a bachelor's and master's degree in law and a doctorate in law from KU Leuven. During his studies, he completed an Erasmus programme at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Prior to joining Linklaters, he was a visiting research fellow at Yale Law School (B.A.E.F. and Fulbright Scholarship).

Wannes recent published works include:

• Groeiende aandacht van de magistratuur voor de minnelijke oplossing van geschillen: een casestudy van de schikkingskamer in de ondernemingsrechtbank Gent, afdeling Gent, Tijdschrift voor procesrecht en bewijsrecht / Revue de droit judiciaire et de la preuve 2022, 160-180 [The growing focus of the judiciary on the amicable resolution of disputes: an empirical study of the settlement chamber in the Ghent Enterprise Court, Ghent Division], (co-author)
• L’obligation de collaborer à l’administration de la preuve : précisions sur la portée d’un principe particulier’, Revue Critique de Jurisprudence Belge 2021, 251-279 [The obligation to collaborate to the administration of evidence : clarification of the scope of a specific principle of the law].
• Rethinking non-pecuniary remedies for defamation. The case for court-ordered apologies, Journal of International Media & Entertainment Law, 2021/9, p. 109-170.
• Dealing with Evidentiary Deficiency in Tort Law”, The International Journal of Procedural Law 2019/1, p. 50-75.