Professional notice
Pels Rijcken ranks among the top law firms in the Netherlands. Pels Rijcken offers highquality, customised legal services for prominent clients, traditionally including the State and provincial and municipal authorities. In addition, Pels Rijcken acts on behalf of many regulatory authorities and large national and international companies. The firm’s partners also include the so-called State Advocate. Pels Rijcken is the premier litigation law firm of the Netherlands. We act for major corporate entities, government institutions, including the State of the Netherlands, and regulatory authorities including the Dutch competition authority (ACM). Chambers Global 2022 and Chambers Europe 2022 rank our firm in Band 1 for ‘Dispute Resolution’. In addition, Pels Rijcken is ranked in Tier 1 of the Legal 500 for ‘Dispute Resolution: Commercial Litigation’. Pels Rijcken's EU & Competition team is renowned for its substantial representations of the Dutch State. No other firm in the Netherlands is involved in a comparable number of court proceedings involving EU or competition law. The team has a significant practice representing private clients too (cartel damages proceedings and other types of competition litigation, merger filings and litigation, advisory work, et cetera). The EU & Competition team has a very active role acting on the defence side in several of the most high-profile cartel damages cases in the Netherlands and is widely recognised as a leading firm in this field. It has also has a particularly strong track record in merger control litigation. Chambers Europe 2022 rank our firm in Band 2 for ‘Competition/European Law’. In addition, Pels Rijcken is ranked in Tier 2 of the Legal 500 for ‘EU and Competition’. Due to our unique experience advising and representing both public and private clients our lawyers are ideally placed to provide practice-oriented advice on the application of competition law, especially with regard to merger control and other competition law related issues that companies encounter.
Our Lawyers
Erik Pijnacker Hordijk is one of the most experienced lawyers in the Netherlands in the area of EU and competition law. Erik has been a lawyer since 1983. In 2017, he left De Brauw to join Pels Rijcken as head of the EU & Competition practice group. His practice ranges from merger control and cartel damage litigation to proceedings on the consequences of Brexit for residence rights of British nationals. In addition to competition law, state aid and the internal market are priorities in his practice. Willem Heemskerk has been an attorney at Pels Rijcken since 1992 and is one of the most experienced litigators in the Netherlands. Having started as a Supreme Court litigator, Willem soon developed a practice in deciding questions of fact and has been involved in over 300 preliminary relief proceedings and almost as many proceedings on the merits. He handles complex civil disputes, mainly in the context of liability and compensation cases. He also assists companies confronted with cartel damage claims (follow-on actions) in connection to decisions of the European Commission. Raimond Dufour has been with Pels Rijcken’s Dispute Resolution department for the past ten years. Raimond specialises in private international law and has extensive experience with class actions and group actions in cross-border disputes, including cartel follow-on cases. Marleen Botman has over 20 years of experience in both EU law and administrative law (associate at law firm, judiciary, and academia).Marleen is a specialist in EU law, with special emphasis on the internal market and state aid law. She holds a PhD in the at VU University Amsterdam. Jotte Mulder specializes in EU and competition law and has over 15 years of experience at top tier law firms, academia and public enforcers. Jotte handles cases in all areas of EU and competition law, including in particular the cartel rules, internal market, merger control, abuse of power and EU state aid law. He represents both private parties and government agencies. Jotte holds a PhD from the European University Institute.
Website: www.pelsrijcken.nl/