1. Johan Billiet
2. Philippe Billiet
3. Willem Meuwissen
4. Ms. Arina Gorbatyuk
5. Ms. Anne Witters
6. Dr. Dilyara Nigmatullina
7. Dr. Wannes Vandenbussche

1. Johan Billiet

Johan is a lawyer at the Brussels Bar and a specialist in commercial law, bankruptcy and insolvency, and distribution and franchising. He is the founding partner of Billiet & Co. Johan holds a dual Master in Law and Criminology from the University of Ghent, as well as a Master in Maritime Law from the University of Antwerp. He is the founder of the Association for International Arbitration, and the author of various books, including the manual of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) on International Investment Arbitration. Johan teaches investment arbitration, dispute resolution and comparative arbitration at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of the VUB. He has also served as a deputy judge and is a former public prosecutor. He works in Dutch, French, and English.

2. Philippe Billiet

Philippe is a lawyer at the Brussels Bar and a specialist in conflict (re)solution, arbitration, and commercial law. He obtained his LL.M. in International Economic Law at the University of Warwick. Philippe was one of the first mediators to obtain the EMTPJ (European Mediation Training for Practitioners of Justice) certification and he frequently intervenes in matters that have a diplomatic dimension. He is a vice-president of the Chambre d’arbitrage d’experts, a member of the advisory board of the Brussels Diplomatic Academy, and a registered arbitrator with numerous institutions worldwide. He lectures on conflict resolution tools and strategies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He works in Dutch, French, and English. In addition, he is conversational in German and understands Polish.

3. Willem Meuwissen

Willem 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 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.

Willem has worked for many clients in Belgium, Europe and worldwide. He 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 specialises in commercial law, corporate law, real estate law, labour law, commodity trade, negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation.

4. 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.

5. Ms. Anne Witters

Anne-Marie 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 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 (2006-2013) 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).

6. Dr. Dilyara Nigmatullina

Dilyara is an arbitration and mediation consultant specialising in international commercial law. She obtained an LL.M. in International Commercial Arbitration Law from Stockholm University and a PhD in International Dispute Resolution from the University of Western Australia. She has worked as a legal adviser at Andersen Business Services, a guest lecturer at the University of Western Australia and she currently holds the position of Supernumerary Academic Staff at the Law Faculty of the University of Antwerp. Dilyara has experience acting as an arbitrator and a mediator. She works in Russian, English, Spanish, and is conversational in Dutch.

7. Dr. Wannes Vandenbussche

Dr. Wannes Vandenbussche is an associate research scholar at Yale Law School (B.A.E.F & Fulbright Fellow), a research affiliate at KU Leuven and an accredited mediator by the Belgian Federal Mediation Commission. Wannes studied law at KU Leuven, the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Erasmus exchange) and Tilburg University (within the framework of the Research Master Program). From 2012 until 2017, he was a full-time researcher at the Institute for the Law of Obligations at KU Leuven, first as a teaching and research assistant (AAP) and afterwards as a Fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). In May 2017, he defended his PhD thesis on “Evidentiary deficiency in tort law”. Wannes is highly interested in Mediation and ADR. He was a member (2012) and coach (2013 and 2014) of the KU Leuven team participating in the International Commercial Mediation Competition in Paris, he deepened his knowledge by taking part in several ADR programs (e.g. the International Summer School on Dispute Resolution in Berlin 2013 and the European Mediation Training for Practitioners of Justice in Brussels in 2015) and he regularly publishes on this topic.