Axel Desmedt has served as President of the Belgian Competition Authority since 1 March 2024.
Previously, he served for 14 years as a member of the BIPT Council, the Belgian regulator for telecommunications and postal services, across two consecutive mandates. In that role, he led the spectrum, telecommunications and media, consumer, and postal market services, as well as the legal and HR departments. He oversaw several spectrum auctions in Belgium and introduced a number of groundbreaking regulatory initiatives, including the first successful cable access regulation in Europe. During his tenure, he contributed to major legislative reforms in the postal and telecommunications sectors that were subsequently adopted by the Government and Parliament. He also supervised significant economic and administrative disputes involving both BIPT and the Belgian State in these sectors.
Axel Desmedt began his career as a lawyer at the Brussels Bar, practising for more than eight years in two law firms, where he specialized primarily in EU competition and WTO law. He later joined a major European telecommunications group as in-house counsel and served as Deputy Director of the group's permanent representation to the EU.
He has also taught as a visiting professor at UCLouvain (2015–2020) and KU Leuven (2020–2021). He was co-founder and editor of Tijdschrift voor het recht van netwerkindustrieën / Revue du droit des industries de réseau. Since 2023, he has been a Fellow of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), where he obtained his law degree in 1996. He also holds an LL.M. from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, USA).