Launch of Acquis EU Law & Policy

It is a great pleasure to announce the establishment and launch of the activities of “Acquis EU Law & Policy”.

Based on a firm belief in the European project, at Acquis we consider it our mission to help shape the future of the EU for the benefit of our clients and other stakeholders. We ensure that the voice of our clients is heard in EU policy debates, and we assist in removing regulatory hurdles.

In this letter, I would like to share some information and background on this exciting new venture.

Acquis is headquartered in Brussels, and operates – with exclusive affiliated partners - in a number of EU capitals. The exclusive affiliation with Explico - the leading regulatory and public policy service provider in Central and Eastern Europe – is one of the cornerstones of our operations. We are working on the establishment of an office in Vienna – the second diplomatic capital in Europe - and are at the final stages of concluding our affiliations in the US (Washington DC and New York City) and elsewhere. 

Some people have said “how courageous” to set up a company and start operations in the middle of a pandemic-driven lockdown, creating an uncertain business environment. We believe it is less dramatic than that. The decision to establish our firm was well-prepared and responsibly executed. In this respect, we are in particular grateful to our new clients and those clients that were keen to continue working with us.

There were challenges during the last two months, in particular of a practical and logistical nature, while setting up our office and building the infrastructure to serve our clients and partners internationally. Therefore, I am grateful for the dedication and perseverance of our team – in particular Laura Semmler and Alexander Loomans. They did a fantastic job. I also wish to express my sincere appreciation for my co-founding partner Valerijus Ostrovskis and partner-affiliate Miklos Orban for their relentless efforts and support.    

As you will be aware, the name "Acquis" is derived from the term "Acquis Communautaire" or "Community Acquis" - which means the total of accumulated European legislation, legal acts, and court decisions which constitute the body of European Law.  It is a dynamic domain that is constantly developing. And it is exactly in that domain that we operate: providing advice on EU law and regulation, policy developments and government affairs more generally, including legislative advocacy.

We service clients in four distinct practice areas:

• EU policy, regulatory & government affairs services - interest representation and legislative advocacy for (international) corporations and industry associations and federations;
• Sanction Law and compliance - whereby the team is highly recognised for its capabilities in sanctions law and export controls;
• Public International Law and international trade policy;
• Diplomatic support services – assisting diplomatic missions in Brussels and other European capitals with a full suite of expertise, supporting diplomatic operations.

For more information, background and our capabilities, we invite you to look around our website.

Apart from the quality of our work, we hope to build our practice on the basis of the goodwill that we have earned as part of our collective and individual past performance. Clients and colleagues that worked with us have lauded the experience: “Hands-on engagement, agility, quality of our work, high degrees of responsiveness and creativity in their approach” - are most-quoted strengths. And we are fun to work with as well. We believe in strategic long-term relationships, not in past-century hourly billings and excel-sheet management.

It goes without saying that we hope to hear from you and explore how we can support your legal, regulatory and organisational requirements or your engagement with the EU Institutions. Of equal value for us will be the potential referral of contacts in your professional network that would require – or benefit from – interest representation at EU level or legal and regulatory advice on topics relating to EU Law and policy.

As a firm, we manage our costs and overhead, contributing to the cost-effectiveness of our operations, sharing those benefits with our clients, which in turn is reflected in fair service fees. The latter certainly is an extra plus these days, where our flexibility on engagement and fees is providing an important competitive advantage. It will also allow our team to devote more time to pro-bono work and sharing our expertise with individuals and organisations that we believe deserve our support – in particular in the field of arts & culture, as well as development financing.  

We hope to be able to invite you shortly to our offices in Brussels when the situation allows, or travel to meet you at your offices. In the meantime, we are available for calls or video conferencing to discuss how our team could be of assistance.

For now, we hope that you will stay safe and in good health and spirits, and that your organisation will surmount the challenges presented by these unprecedented times.

On behalf of the Acquis team and affiliates,

With kind regards,

 

Jeroen Jansen                                                       Valerijus Ostrovskis                                    

Founder and Managing Partner                              Co-Founder & Partner