1. Johan Billiet
2. Philippe Billiet
3. Willem Meuwissen
4. Prof. dr. Frank Fleerackers
5. Ms. Arina Gorbatyuk
6. Mr. Bernhard Wisleitner
7. Ms. Anne Witters
8. Dr. Dilyara Nigmatullina

1. Johan Billiet

Johan Billiet is an international lawyer whose practice focuses on litigation and arbitration. He is active as a lawyer since 1977. He started his career as a lawyer in Ghent and became a member of the Brussels Bar in 1979. He was one of the first lawyers who was also mentioned on the EU list of the Paris Bar. He has over 30 years of experience as a lawyer and is frequently appointed by courts as bankruptcy administrator and administrator of debts. He has also been a deputy judge and a deputy public prosecutor for several years. Johan is also frequently appointed to act as an arbitrator in all types of national and international arbitration proceedings. He currently presides over the Association for International Arbitration (AIA) and lectures on alternative dispute resolution at the VUB University in Brussels and at various ADR training providers. As a mediator he obtained the EMTPJ mediator accreditation to mediate civil and commercial cross-border disputes.
Johan is the author of various books and numerous articles on distribution law, commercial law, contract law and alternative dispute resolution.
He works in Dutch, French and English.

2. Philippe Billiet

Philippe Billiet works as a lawyer for the Belgian firm Billiet & Co (www.billiet-co.be) based in Brussels where he focuses mainly on ADR, civil and commercial law. He is frequently appointed as Arbitrator by various national and international ADR centers and was one of the first mediators with EMTPJ accreditation. He is mediation trainer for the EMPTJ training program (www.emtpj.eu) and lectures ADR (including comparative arbitration laws and dispute settlement in China) at the Brussels VUB University. He has frequently taken part in think-tanks and has been invited as visiting lecturer/speaker at the University of Antwerp and the Brussels HUB University. He holds a master degree from the KUL University in Leuven and an LLM degree in International Economic Law from the University of Warwick. He frequently speaks at conferences and seminars and has widely published on ADR, commercial law and competition law.

3. Willem Meuwissen

Willem Meuwissen is an expert negotiator, mediator and litigator in Commercial, Corporate and Real Estate Law. He is the author of several publications in commercial law and mediation. He teaches negotiation and mediation at the bMediation Accredited Mediators Course, at the AIA European Mediation Training for Practitioners of Justice, at the Belgian National Magistrates Training Institute (IGO) and at the Brussels Diplomatic Academy. He is a Permanent Member of the Belgian Federal Mediation Commission and a member of the Flemish Bar Association ADR Commission. Willem Meuwissen (1956) studied at the Universities of Antwerp and Leuven, where he obtained an LLM cum laude. He was called to the Bar in 1980 and trained by the famous maritime attorney Robert Wijffels Esq.
He founded Meuwissen & Co, a specialized commercial law firm in 1996. Meuwissen & Co has worked for many clients in Belgium, Europe and worldwide. Willem defends the interests of his clients in negotiation, mediation and litigation. He is an expert in international commodity arbitration (RUCIP) and is fluent in Dutch, French, English and German. He is regularly appointed as a mediator, both by the courts and by private parties in important commercial and labour disputes.
His specialties are: commercial law, corporate law, real estate law, labour law, commodity trade, negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation.

4. Prof. dr. Frank Fleerackers

Prof. dr. Fleerackers is Professor of Law and Jurisprudence at KU Leuven University. Courses taught: Principles of Law at KU Leuven, Brussels and Tilburg Universities; Arbitration and Negotiation at VU Brussels University; Alternative Dispute Resolution, visiting positions held at distinguished universities including Harvard and MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prof. dr. Fleerackers is Commissioner of the High Council of Justice and sits on the Judicial Appointments Commission; former Dean of the KU Brussels Law Faculty and two-term President of the Flanders Academics Association.
Prof. dr. Fleerackers publishes widely on law and jurisprudence, authored or edited sixteen books and directs the Advocare research institute for conflict analysis and resolution enhancement. Authored books include: Affective Legal Analysis, On the Resolution of Conflict; Het Vel van de Rechter, Van Oordeelsvorming tot Conflictregeling; Het Recht van de Filosoof, Juridisch Glossarium Geschillenregeling; forthcoming monograph on legal thinking.

5. Ms. Arina Gorbatyuk

Ms. Arina Gorbatyuk is a PhD Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) at the KU Leuven Center for IT and IP Law (CiTiP). Arina writes her PhD thesis entitled ‘Rethinking IP Ownership in the Context of Open Innovation’. In her research, she focuses on the challenges collaborating partners encounter while allocating the ownership of jointly developed intellectual property (IP). A part of her analysis is dedicated to resolving IP-related conflicts through alternative disputes resolution mechanisms, including mediation. Since January 2015, Arina co-coordinates a course ‘Problems of IP and ICT in Practice’ of the KU Leuven Master of IP and ICT Law (LL.M.), where she and Philippe Billiet (Billiet & Co) give classes on IP mediation. In 2013 and 2014, she coached a KU Leuven team for the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition in Paris. Since February 2017, she is a mediator accredited by the Belgian Federal Mediation Commission.

6. Mr. Bernhard Wisleitner

Mr. Bernhard Wisleitner, PhD, is Certified Management Consultant, mediator, coach and trainer. He studied law at the University of Vienna, Austria, nourished by studies in economics. He has held a variety of management positions on senior and chief executive level in national and international company groups. Among those were Banks including joint-ventures with insurances and truck-producers as well as customer-service-providers. He also was in the legal function including international M&A-projects in industrial company groups and, for more than a decade, CEO of a pension insurance for a group of liberal professionals. His consulting-specialization in training, mediation, coaching and project management began in 2004 and has grown in parallel as a result of his successful operational activities, accompanied by additional education in mediation in Vienna and Brussels, presentation skills (University of Vienna) and systemic counseling (Incite Academy). He has published in the fields of civil procedural law, labor law, and economics. He also practices his negotiation-expertise by participating in coordination meetings on an EU-level. “Mediation is more than conflict resolution, managers should implement the specific skills into their daily business and navigate their teams through difficult situations as a coach” he recommends.

7. Ms. Anne Witters

Ms. Anne-Marie Witters is a judge in the Dutch speaking commercial court of Brussels Belgium since 2013. She is also a Board member of GEMME Belgium (association of judges promoting mediation and ADR). Prior to that she was a specialist lawyer with over 20 years of experience of commercial mediation and litigation. She began in practice as a lawyer in 1988 (after having spent two years in the US during which she earned an LLM degree and obtained practical training both in Atlanta and in New York). She is fluent in Dutch, French, English and has a working knowledge of German. She served as a Member of the Belgian Federal Mediation Commission (2009-2013). Prior to becoming a judge, she was in demand as a mediator (206-2013) over a wide spectrum of commercial, civil and social disputes, many of them with an international dimension. She trained mediators in Belgium, on behalf of PMR-Europe, B-Mediation and the Association for International Arbitration (AIA).

8. Dr. Dilyara Nigmatullina

Dr. Dilyara Nigmatullina is an arbitration and mediation consultant at Billiet & Co and a Supernumerary Academic Staff at the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp. She joined Billiet & Co after completing her PhD on the combined use of mediation and arbitration in international commercial dispute resolution at the University of Western Australia. Dilyara also holds an LL.M. in International Commercial Arbitration Law from Stockholm University. Among others, she worked and interned at the Association for International Arbitration in Brussels and the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. Dilyara is accredited as a mediator in civil and commercial matters by the Belgian Federal Mediation Commission. She has published, presented and lectured on international commercial and investment arbitration and mediation.