Sebastiaan has extensive experience in advising and assisting (multinational) companies when do-ing business in sanctioned countries, including Cuba, Iran, Syria and Russia. Sebastiaan also has successfully represented his clients in administrative, criminal and private law matters and related procedures in the area of sanctions and export controls. He also frequently assists his clients with their trade compliance related issues and is very experienced in conducting internal (fraud)investigations, preparing voluntary disclosures and assisting clients in matters initiated by national and international authorities (VS, UK, EU en NL).

Sebastiaan has advised a number of major (including publicly listed) offshore companies and (multi)nationals on EU and US sanctions compliance and assisted them with successfully re-entering the Iranian market. In addition, Sebastiaan has assisted an international operating communication systems company with a voluntary self-disclosure before the national reg-ulatory authorities. Sebastiaan has also advised a major international carrier in a criminal investigation for exports to Saudi Arabia without the required export licenses. His recent work includes advising one of the largest international drone companies in the world on the implementation of a compliance policy and providing transaction advice relating thereto. Sebastiaan has extensive experience in respect of transactions relating to Russia and various African countries.

Sebastiaan is an esteemed speaker at national and international conferences in the field of trade laws. He also frequently lectures, provides (in-house) training and publishes in legal literature, news-papers and magazines. Sebastiaan is regularly quoted in newspapers, and often appears on tv and radio shows.

Before founding BenninkAmar, Sebastiaan was a partner at Wladimiroff, and also at B&A Law, the first Dutch boutique firm specialising in economic sanctions laws and export control legislation. Prior to that, Sebastiaan worked at the Regulatory and Criminal Enforcement department of De Brauw Blackstong Westbroek, the Netherlands’ largest law firm.

Maarten Rijssenbeek is a partner of the Forensic & Financial Crime team of Deloitte in The Netherlands. Before he joined Deloitte, he worked as a public prosecutor and as a deputy advocate general for more than ten years. Maarten started his career as a corporate and criminal defence attorney.

Maarten focuses on assisting clients with financial crime challenges. He participates in and drives the wider debate on bringing the (inter)national financial crime framework to the next maturity level, e.g. facilitating public/private and private/private cooperation.

As a prosecutor, Maarten investigated and prosecuted several high profile fraud, corruption and money laundering cases.

From 2013-2019, Maarten was the national coordinating prosecutor for terrorist financing in the Netherlands. In this role, he cofounded and chaired an interagency partnership and a public-private partnership against terrorism financing within the Dutch Financial Expertise Centre (FEC). He was also closely involved in the creation of a public-private partnership against serious crime and money laundering.

Maarten has been a member of the Dutch FATF delegation and a visiting lecturer on terrorist financing and sanctions at Leiden University.

Charlotte acts as group compliance advisor for KBC. Her practice centers on the monitoring and implementation of sanctions measures for the group and the various subsidiaries and branches of KBC.

Previously, she also advised companies and third-country governments on several trade issues, including anti-dumping, anti-subsidy and other trade and customs matters involving the EU institutions. She further provided advice in relation to EU FTAs.