About us

Freerk Gätjens

Freerk Gätjens (born in 1971) began his career as a civil servant at the tax office in Darmstadt/Germany, where he worked for more than three years while simultaneously studying at the University of Applied Sciences in Rotenburg a.d. Fulda/Germany. He completed his master of fiscal affairs in 1994 and left the tax office the same year having been elevated to the rank of a “tax inspector”.

Subsequently, Freerk studied law at the University of Göttingen/Germany, where he specialised in tax law. He completed his studies by passing the first legal state exam in 1999.

After working as a legal trainee (“Referendar”) in Kassel/Germany, which included a seat with the Hessian Finance Court, he finished his legal training by successfully taking the second legal state exam in 2002. In May 2003, he was admitted to the German bar and, in April 2007, he became a certified tax law specialist (“Fachanwalt für Steuerrecht”).

From February 2003 to October 2006, Freerk worked as head of tax and legal at the textiles company Mehler AG in Fulda/Germany. As part of his responsibilities, he reported to the executive boards of Mehler AG and its parent company KAP Beteiligungs AG on tax as well as legal matters.

From November 2006 to May 2011, Freerk worked for Deloitte & Touche’s Dutch branch (Deloitte Belastingadviseurs B.V.) in Zwolle/The Netherlands. His area of practice encompassed national Dutch and international tax advice. He also established a German Desk. In May 2009, he successfully finished Deloitte’s “Post Master Tax” training programme on Dutch tax law.

From 2010 to 2012, Freerk was chairman of the Tax Sub-Commission within the Law & Tax Commission of the Dutch German Chamber of Commerce (DNHK), and he frequently published articles for the DNHK on a range of topical fiscal matters.

Since June 2011, Freerk has been practising as an independent tax lawyer in Zwolle/The Netherlands. He is also registered as a Dutch lawyer “advocaat” with the Bar Association of Overijssel. His specialisation is German-Dutch tax law where he has a particular focus on cross border transactions and the real estate sector.

Freerk has registered his principal legal practice area - tax law (fiscaal recht) - in the Netherlands Bar‛s register of legal practice areas (rechtsgebiedenregister). Based on this registration, he is required to obtain ten training credits per calendar year in this registered principal legal practice area in acccordance with the standards set by the Netherlands Bar.

Freerk is a dynamic and innovative lawyer whose work is built on the tax and legal interests of his clients without losing sight of the “human factor” in each case.