Axel Desmedt

President at Belgian Competition Authority

Speaker

Axel Desmedt is the President of the Belgian Competition Authority since 1 March 2024.

Before that, he was a member of the BIPT Council (the Belgian telecoms and postal regulator) for 14 years (two consecutive mandates), where he respectively lead the spectrum, telecoms & media, consumer and postal market services, in addition to the legal and HR services. He led several spectrum auctions in Belgium and introduced some several ground-breaking regulatory projects, such as the first successful cable access regulation in Europe. During his tenures Axel Desmedt helped preparing a number of major legislative reforms in both the postal and telecoms sectors which were adopted by the Government and Parliament. He oversaw some of the major economic and administrative disputes both for the BIPT and the Belgian State in the telecoms and postal sectors.

Axel Desmedt started as a lawyer at the Brussels Bar practicing for more than eight years in two different law firms, where he specialised mainly in EU competition and WTO law. He then joined a major European telecommunications group in-house as a Senior Legal Council and Deputy Director for the group's permanent representation to the EU.

Axel Desmedt lectured as a visiting professor at UCL (2015-2020) and KUL (2020-2021). He was the cofounder and editor of the Tijdschrift voor het recht van netwerkindustrieën/ Revue du droit des indsutries de réseau. Since 2023, Axel Desmedt is a Fellow of the Free University of Brussels (VUB), where he graduated in law in 1996. He also holds an LL.M. from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, USA).