Dirk De Meulemeester
Dirk De Meulemeester holds a Master of Law degree (Lic. Jur.) from Ghent University and successfully completed expert training at the University of Cambridge and the University of Cologne. He previously was a lawyer at the Ghent Bar and Paris Bar and Associate/Partner at LEXLITIS International Law Firm. Currently, he is a lawyer at the Brussels Bar, Associate/Partner at De Meulemeester & De Brabandere Law, Honorary Chairman of CEPANI (The Belgian Centre for Arbitration and Mediation), Visiting Professor (“Negotiation and Mediation”, “International Commercial Arbitration”) at Ghent University and Leiden University, Honorary Fellow at the Department of Procedural Law, Arbitration and Private International Law at Ghent University and Substitute Judge at the Commercial Court of Ghent.
He has been practicing dispute resolution for over 20 years in both national and international commercial and investment arbitration. He is enlisted as an arbitrator at ICC (Paris), Swiss Chambers (Geneva/Zürich), WIPO (Geneva), NAI (Rotterdam), CCJA/OHADA (Abidjan), KCAB INTERNATIONAL (Seoul). As counsel or arbitrator (co-arbitrator, sole arbitrator or presiding arbitrator), he has acted in over seventy arbitration proceedings, administered (incl. ICC, Swiss Rules, WIPO, CEPANI, ICSID, NAI) and ad hoc, governed by various procedural and substantive laws, both civil law and common law (incl. English, French, Danish, Dutch, Hong Kong and Swiss law), and by international law. Furthermore, he has extensive experience in Mediation, Mini-Trial and MedArb and was a member of the Task Force which drafted the 2013 New Belgian Arbitration Law as well as Chairman of the Task Force of the 2017 Amendments of the Belgian Arbitration Law. He also chaired the working group to revise the CEPANI Arbitration Rules (2020).
He also acted as founder of the “CEPANI Arbitration Academy” and the “CEPANI ADR Academy”, founder and Co-chair of CEPANI40, President of the Arbitral Tribunal of the Arbitration Centre in Matters of Sexual Abuse, Judge regarding unacceptable behavious in Sports, President of the Arbitral Tribunal of the Travel Disputes Committee and President of the Arbitral Tribunal of the Construction of Schools Committee. He is author of numerous publications with main focus on arbitration, labour law and travel law. His areas of specialization include joint venture, share purchase, M&A, sales, agency, distribution, IT, construction, energy, employment, the pharmaceutical sector and investment arbitration. He is fluent in English, French and Dutch.