Philippe De Baere Van Bael & Bellis

Philippe De Baere is co-managing partner of Van Bael & Bellis. His practice focuses on EU and WTO trade law as well as EU customs law and export controls.

He has been involved in most major EU anti-dumping, anti-circumvention and anti-subsidy proceedings since 1990. In this field, he has represented numerous clients before the European Commission, the European Court of Justice (now Court of Justice of the European Union), WTO Panels and the WTO Appellate Body. Notable cases include MTZ Polyfilms v Council (T-143/06), Far Eastern Textile, Ltd. v. Council (T-167/07) – addressing the use of zeroing methodologies in anti-dumping investigations – and Giant (China) Co. Ltd v Council (T-425/13; C-61/16 P).

In the field of international trade law, he has assisted WTO Members in numerous WTO dispute settlement proceedings. Most notably, in the EC – Definitive Anti-Dumping Measures on Certain Iron or Steel Fasteners from China (DS397) dispute, he obtained an unprecedented finding that the EU's Basic Anti-dumping Regulation, as such, was incompatible with the EU's WTO obligations. Furthermore, following successful Article 21.5 compliance proceedings, the EU was forced to repeal the anti-dumping measures as a whole. Philippe has regularly assisted governments during their WTO accession negotiations as well as during the Uruguay Round and Doha Round negotiations. Currently, he represents Ukraine in Russia – Measures concerning Traffic in Transit (DS512) and assists Japan in India – Certain Measures on Imports of Iron and Steel Products (DS518).

In the field of customs law, he has represented several large manufacturers of high technology products in disputes before the European courts and the European Commission concerning customs classification, valuation and origin. Most notably, he was the first to obtain the annulment of a customs classification regulation through a direct action before the CJEU (Sony Europe v Commission (T-243/01)).

He regularly lectures on EC and WTO Trade Law at the University Carlos III in Madrid and the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL).

Philippe completed his master and bachelor degree studies in both law (1984) and international relations (1986) at the University of Leuven and the University of Antwerp.