Etienne Dessy

Etienne leads the firm’s Brussels office Financial Regulation and Investment Funds practices. He specialises in Belgian and EU financial regulation, advising top-tier Belgian and foreign financial institutions on a wide range of financial regulation questions  and financial markets matters.

Etienne has deep knowledge of the regulatory environment in which financial institutions operate, including extensive knowledge of UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities), AIFMD (Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive), EMIR (European Market Infrastructure Regulation) and MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) applications. 

Etienne is an expert in governance-related matters and is also often involved in cross-border M&A transactions in the financial sector and in group reorganisations, as well as regulatory investigations.

The other component of Etienne’s practice is investment funds. He advises international and Belgian fund managers on all aspects of structuring and management of funds, including prudential regulation of management companies and funds distribution. 

Work highlights

• Euroclear on the transfer of its top holding company to Belgium in the framework of Brexit
• Warburg Pincus on the acquisition of Banca Monte Paschi Belgio (now Aion), the Belgian banking subsidiary of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena
• an global asset manager on a number of regulatory issues regarding the sale and distribution of retail UCITS and Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) products in Belgium
• Generali Group on the sale of Generali Belgium, a Belgian insurance company primarily focused on the life segment, to Athora Holding
• Deutsche Bank on the cross-border merger of Deutsche Bank Belgium into Deutsche Bank AG, the first large-scale cross-border merger of a retail bank in Belgium

Etienne is a member of the editorial board of the Revue de Droit Commercial Belge / Tijdschrift voor Belgisch Handelsrecht (Belgian Commercial Law Review). 

Etienne regularly publishes on funds-related topics. Among his articles, Etienne wrote “La commercialisation d’organismes de placement collectif alternatifs en Belgique”, Droit bancaire et financier / Bank- en Financieel Recht, 2014.

Etienne studied law at the University of Namur (Belgium), and holds a master’s in law from the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) and a master’s in international business law from the University of Leiden (The Netherlands).

He speaks English, French and Dutch.