Ep Hannema

Background

Ep Hannema was born in 1961. His legal career developed in the Netherlands, where he was admitted to the bar in 1988.

Education

Hannema studied at Leyden University, known today as Leiden University, and his studies there concluded in 1986. Founded in 1575, Leiden is the oldest university in the Netherlands and has long been a center of legal scholarship in the country.

Later he completed a special course in financial and economic criminal law at the Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam in 2019 and 2020. The VU was founded in 1880 as a free university on Christian principles, offering an alternative to the state universities of the period.

Career

Hannema began his legal career in 1988 as a lawyer at Nauta Dutilh, a firm whose history reaches back to 1724 and which describes itself as the oldest independent law firm in the Benelux. The modern NautaDutilh was formed in 1990 through a merger involving Nauta Van Haersolte and Dutilh, Van der Hoeven and Slager.

In 1997 he became a partner at Houthoff, an Amsterdam-based Dutch firm that grew by combining with smaller practices, including a 1999 combination with Buruma Maris that produced Houthoff Buruma. Houthoff now has offices in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, London and New York. Hannema also took up a supervisory role at Fornix BioSciences N.V., a Dutch public limited company, in 2000, and he was reappointed to that board in 2004 for a further four years.

In 2002 he helped set up the Amsterdam office of Norton Rose, which later became Norton Rose Fulbright, together with several colleagues from his former firm. He remained with the firm for almost two decades, served as its managing partner, and retired from the partnership at the end of 2021. He has described the move to an international firm as attractive because it offered new specialization opportunities, and he has named his work on the Dutch National Lottery claims, which involved large sums, among the most intensive cases he handled.

His corporate practice centers on distressed and other mergers and acquisitions, with advice to boards and supervisory boards on strategic legal questions. He has extensive experience with large acquisitions, including BMW's €3.5 billion acquisition of ING Car Lease, and his sectors of greatest activity are financial institutions and retail.

On 1 January 2022 he joined Windt Le Grand Leeuwenburgh, a Dutch law firm with an office in Rotterdam, as a corporate partner. Later profiles list him as an adviser at the firm.

Membership

Hannema is affiliated with the Netherlands Arbitration Institute, a foundation established by notarial deed in 1949 to promote arbitration, binding advice and mediation in the Netherlands. The institute administers procedures for businesses as well as for private parties who agree in their contracts to its arbitration, and it operates as a non-profit foundation without a connection to the Dutch State.

• Arbitrator

  Netherlands Arbitration Institute , Netherlands

References

• Legal 500: Ep Hannema, Windt Le Grand Leeuwenburgh Lawyer profile describing his corporate and M&A practice, his career at Nauta Dutilh, Houthoff and Norton Rose Fulbright, and his position at Windt Le Grand Leeuwenburgh.
• Windt Le Grand Leeuwenburgh team page: Ep Hannema Firm profile covering his joining the firm as a corporate partner on 1 January 2022, his earlier career, and his corporate law practice.
• Norton Rose Fulbright alumni story: A unique culture with Ep Hannema Firm interview recounting his joining the Amsterdam office in 2002, his managing partnership, and his retirement from the partnership at the end of 2021.
• Management Scope: Ep Hannema profile Dutch-language profile covering his career, his supervisory board appointment at Fornix BioSciences, and his role as arbitrator with the Netherlands Arbitration Institute.
• Bloomberg Markets: Ep W J Hannema profile Profile identifying him as managing partner of Norton Rose Fulbright LLP and listing his memberships.