Partner
Stephane Criel
- Intellectual property law and commercial law
- Arbitrator in domain name disputes CEPANI and co-founder Future Lawyers Belgium
- Member of Taskforce Overmorgen & Orde van Vlaamse Balies
Stephane Criel in the news
Stephane is active in these specializations
Stephane Criel is a partner in the Commercial Law Department of our firm. He specializes in intellectual property law, trade secrets, trade practices, general commercial and economic law, and white-collar criminal defense and investigation.
He assists Belgian and international clients in finding a pragmatic solution to a wide range of commercial challenges. He analyses and assesses risks in judicial proceedings and represents clients in litigations relating to his areas of expertise.
Stephane mainly advises on the protection of intellectual creations, know-how, and trade secrets and on how to avoid and solve issues relating to intellectual property and related rights. He drafts, amends, and negotiates contracts and seeks the best solution possible and, if necessary, a creative one. Regarding criminal law matters, Stephane has represented clients in several cases concerning cybercrime and intellectual property infringements.
Stephane graduated in law (Ghent University 1993) and obtained a Master of Intellectual Property and ICT Law in 2000 (bilingual degree, Katholieke Universiteit Brussel-Katholieke Universiteit Leuven). He taught intellectual property at HOWEST (Bruges) from 2013-2016. He is a regular speaker at VLAIO and Unizo events and seminars and is guest lecturer at Ghent University.
He started his career in 1993 when he was admitted to the Ghent bar, and founded his own law firm in 1999. In 2007, he co-founded the law firm VanEeghem & Criel before joining Monard Law in 2016.
Since 2000, he has been appointed as a third-party arbitrator for CEPANI (Belgian Centre for Arbitration and Mediation), presiding over domain name disputes.
He is often elected as board member of the Ghent Bar Association and is also a member of several committees of the Flemish Bar Association (IT Committee and Artificial Intelligence Working Group).
Stephane is a co-founder of Future Lawyers Belgium (a platform that aims to inspire lawyers to innovate) and is also a member of the Overmorgen (The Day After Tomorrow) Task Force of the Flemish Bar Associations (which is tasked with creating a vision (statement) on the future of the legal profession).
