Pieter van den Bulck

Pieter van den Bulck is a versatile and talented in-house counsel with more than 13 years of experience working in the FMCG sector. While he is specialised in IP law with a focus on trademarks, his area of expertise is much broader and covers inter alia marketing law, contract drafting and negotiation, transfer pricing, IP issues in M&A, management and settlement of international litigation, and responsible alcohol advertising.

He is skilled and experienced in building and leading very efficient and effective teams consisting of in-house trademark counsel, patent attorneys and other IP experts, as well as building a strong network of outside counsel to protect the IP portfolios of the world’s largest international beverage companies. One of his key strengths is cross-functional collaboration and coming up with reliable, pragmatic and creative solutions for complex legal problems.

Since January 2019, Mr van den Bulck has been a board member of the International Trademark Association (INTA). He is also a frequent speaker at IP conferences.

Mr Van den Bulck's achievements include:

• being part of the AB InBev team that successfully negotiated, signed and closed the 2019 US$11 billion deal to sell Carlton & United Breweries to Asahi;
• inventing and procuring the programming of a digital platform that automates the process of identifying legal risks to brands due to non-use, providing a huge strategic advantage to companies with big IP portfolios;
• and merging the former SABMiller IP portfolio with that of AB InBev, identifying best practices between their strategies and coming up with a harmonised approach to protect the brands of the enlarged company.