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.
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:
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