Brechje van der Velden
Senior Partner
Amsterdam
Brechje van der Velden
Senior Partner
Amsterdam
Contact Details
Brechje is the Senior Partner of the Amsterdam office and has over 25 years of experience in litigation and restructuring matters. Her practice covers a wide range of commercial and financial dispute resolution and restructuring.
She specializes in class actions and impact litigation, banking and finance litigation, restructuring and insolvency matters. Brechje represents various companies and financial institutions in (the threat of) consumer class actions involving financial products or ESG related litigation. Brechje is a member of the global Executive Committee of Allen & Overy and a member of the Allen & Overy Global Class Action Team.
Brechje joined Loeff Claeys Verbeke, the firm that merged into Allen & Overy in 2000, in 1996. Prior to specialising in dispute resolution, she worked in the Amsterdam mergers & acquisitions practice.
The 2022 edition of Chambers Global describes Brechje as "an excellent litigator" and quotes that she "is a very credible and focused lawyer who truly understands the court's questions and immediately sees through the opponents' manoeuvres"'. Legal 500 described Brechje as "fantastic" and quotes that she is an "outstanding litigator".
Qualifications
Professional
Admitted as advocaat, Netherlands, 1996
Exempt european lawyer, England and Wales, 2011
Listed in the register of legal practice areas of the Dutch Bar Association for Burgerlijk procesrecht (Litigation)
Academic
Related articles
Publications: 14 February 2023
Directive (EU) 2020/1828: A new framework for EU class actions
For many years now, the EU has sought to create a collective redress mechanism across the EU market. Half of the EU member states have little or no such mechanism.
News: 11 January 2023
Allen & Overy bolsters global investigations offering through hire of Patrick Ploeger
News: 07 November 2022
Allen & Overy strengthens Employment Law offering through hire of Hanneke Bennaars
Publications: 10 January 2020
Experience highlights
Advising a financial services group on its strategy towards Conservatrix, a failing life insurance company, taking intervention measures, and all stages of the preliminary process leading to the forced transfer of shares. Advice included governance issues, insurance law issues and assessment of legal consequences for policy holders of effectuating intervention measures, and also preparation of transaction documentation and negotiations on behalf of the group.
Advising Aegon on class action litigation and individual claims concerning the alleged misselling of unit-linked insurance policies and class actions and numerous individual claims relating to consumer complaints on the misselling of securities leasing products. Recent class action initiated against Aegon by Woekerpolis.nl covers the full unit linked insurance portfolio of Aegon.
Successfully representing a global financial institution in legal proceedings initiated by the former shareholder of the Partner Logistics Group, claiming damages from the bank for an amount of EUR223m, alleging that the bank wilfully caused the bankruptcy of the Partner Logistics Group in order to acquire all the shares and to be able to sell the company at a profit. In October 2018, the Amsterdam district court dismissed all claims from the former shareholder and ruled in favour of the institution.
Qualifications
Professional
Admitted as advocaat, Netherlands, 1996
Exempt european lawyer, England and Wales, 2011
Listed in the register of legal practice areas of the Dutch Bar Association for Burgerlijk procesrecht (Litigation)
Academic
Published work
- Non-US Class Actions by Allen & Overy in: Jonathan N. Eisenberg (ed.), Litigation secutities class actions, LexisNexis 2016.
- Rondom het nieuws - Activeren: een nieuwe gedragsnorm voor levensverzekeraars, in Tijdschrift voor Financieel Recht, 4 april 2015, Brechje van der Velden
- Non-US Class Actions by Allen & Overy in: Jonathan N. Eisenberg (ed.), Litigation secutities class actions, LexisNexis 2015.
- Grenzen van collectieve afdoening in zicht, in TOP mei 2014, 38, Brechje van der Velden en Anouk Raaijmakers.
- Dillema’s van de bank in insolventiesituaties, artikel in de IFR bundel Aansprakelijkheid in de financiële sector, september 2013, Brechje van der Velden, Sigrid Jansen
- Breuk in vertrouwen te lijmen? [discussion table headed by Brechje van der Velden with Paul Medendorp, Jan Maarten Slagter en Theodor Kockelkoren]. In: Management Scope nr 10/2011
- Juridische afwikkeling van massaschade nu (bijna) perfect, in: Tijdschrift voor de Ondernemingrechtpraktijk, September 2011
- Massaclaims zijn te vermijden, in: Management Scope, nr. 08-09, 2011
- Bestuurderspensioenfondsen in de vuurlinie, in: het Pensioenmagazine, January 2011, together with Bas Jennen
- Shell-shocked? Het internationale debuut van de Wet Collectieve Afwikkeling Massaschade, in Tijdschrift voor de Ondernemingrechtpraktijk, November 2009, together with Arnold Croiset van Uchelen
- Meer internationaal toezicht helpt niet, in: NRC, 3 April 2009, together with Hendrik Jan Biemond
- Minister gokt op de financiële sector, Tijdschrift voor financieel recht, July 2008, together with Bas Jennen
Recognition
She is very pragmatic and solution-oriented.
Chambers Global, 2018
excels in the courtroom
Legal 500, 2017
to reduce a highly complex legal matter to its basic elements" and to "think ahead to solutions.
Chambers Global, 2017
