Photo of Bart Van Vooren

Bart Van Vooren

Bart Van Vooren has a broad life sciences practice supporting innovative pharmaceutical, food, medtech and biotech companies on EU regulatory, commercial and strategic policy assignments. He is widely recognized for his expertise on general EU law and procedure, as well as his extensive litigation experience before the EU Court of Justice in dozens of cases.

Over the past seven years, Bart has developed a niche practice on compliance with the Biodiversity Convention and the Nagoya Protocol, a set of rules to combat bio-piracy worldwide. He has accumulated unique, practical experience in dozens of jurisdictions around the world, and has handled everything from benefit-sharing negotiations, over compliance programs, to inspections by authorities.

Finally, Bart has an active pro bono practice assisting NGOs defending the human rights of persons with a disability through strategic litigation.

During his previous professional career, Bart was a professor of EU law at the University of Copenhagen and published a couple of books with Oxford and Cambridge University Press. His academic swan song was the (now leading) textbook republished in 2020 by his former academic colleagues in 2nd edition: EU External Relations Law, available from Hart Publishing.

On November 25, 2024, Bulgaria’s Sofia District Court made a request for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU relating to the provisions on automated decision-making (“ADM”) under the AI Act.  Case C-806/24 relates to a claim made by a telecoms company against a consumer who did not pay his bills.  The consumer argues that the telecom company’s method of automatically calculating fees constitutes an ADM system subject to Article 86(1) of the AI Act, and raised questions about the transparency, human review, and fairness aspects of the ADM system.  The Bulgarian court requests to the CJEU clarification on 17 questions of law, citing the AI Act, the Unfair Terms Directive, and the Consumer Rights Directive. Continue Reading CJEU Receives Questions on the AI Act Relating to Automated Decision Making