Osborne Clarke announces five new senior promotions in Belgium

Osborne Clarke has made five senior promotions in the Brussels office with three new Counsel and two new Senior Associates.

Effective 1 January 2023, Louis Hoffreumon, Frank Hoogendijk and Vladimir Murovec are promoted to Counsel. Violette Keppenne and Johan Collard are promoted to Senior Associate. Two of the promoted lawyers, Frank Hoogendijk (Counsel) and Violette Keppenne (Senior Associate), are on the Corporate team with Louis Hoffreumon (Counsel) on the Commercial team, Vladimir Murovec heading the Life Sciences Regulatory team and Johan Collard (Senior Associate) on the Employment team. The promotions reflect the growing expertise of the Brussels office which welcomed new hires Willem Henckens (Senior Counsel) in May 2022 and Roderick Nieuwmeyer (Partner) in September 2022.

Louis has been on the Commercial team in Brussels since our office's first year in 2014 and is specialised in regulatory and compliance in the fields of consumer and regulated products. He is involved in our Retail Practice with a focus on our Food & Beverages practice. Louis advises companies on product compliance at all stages of their lifecycle. He also assists clients on strategic marketing and advertising communications as well as on consumer and unfair competition matters, including their communications with regulators. Within the firm, he is part of our International Urban Dynamics Team as Retail Sector Champion and has a particular interest in our subgroup "The Future of Living" which is a fast evolving regulated topic in line with his core practice.

Frank is on the corporate team in Brussels since 2018 and is also a dedicated Legal Tech Specialist. Frank has extensive experience in corporate transactional and restructuring work, particularly in the TMC sector (with a focus on Web3) and the Workforce Solutions sector. He is specialised in M&A (incl. W&I-insurance), Venture Capital, and legal issues surrounding Web3, NFT, crypto assets and blockchain. His work covers both local and cross-border transactions. He also regularly advises tech start-ups and scale-ups on a broad range of legal issues.

Vladimir joined Osborne Clarke in 2022 and heads the Life Sciences Regulatory practice. Vladimir is a regulatory and compliance specialist in the field of Life Sciences & Healthcare as well as other highly regulated industries, such as the hardware industry. He has significant experience in advising medical devices and digital health businesses, pharmaceutical and consumer health companies. Vladimir supports clients on a wide range of EU and local regulatory issues relating to research strategies, regulatory procedures leading to marketing authorisations and CE marking, production and sale of products, marketing and advertising, as well as compliance and anti-bribery measures with a cross-border element.

Violette has been on the Corporate team in Brussels since 2019. She specialises in public and private corporate transactions, such as ECM work, mergers & acquisitions and VC financing rounds, with a particular focus on the Life Sciences sector.

Johan is on the Employment team in Brussels. He specialises in individual and collective employment law and advises clients on all aspects of social security law.

David Haex, Managing Partner, comments, "I am happy to congratulate all Louis, Frank, Vladimir, Johan and Violette on their well-earned promotions. The promotions reflect years of their hard work and dedication and they are each a great asset to the team. I look forward to seeing them tackle new challenges in the years to come at Osborne Clarke."