Bio

Ruud Smits advises domestic and international clients on corporate transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, venture capital investments and joint ventures. As co-head of NautaDutilh's Life Sciences and Technology teams, Ruud has wide M&A experience in the life sciences and technology sectors. Representative transactions include advising: Liberty Mutual in its acquisition of Nationale Borg, Uber in its Joint Ventures with Yandex Taxi and Grab; Acerta, Sansei Technologies in its acquisition of Vekoma Rides; Johnson & Johnson in its acquisition of Innovalens, Fysicon in its acquisition by Canon Medical Systems Corporation; AcertaPharma B.V. with the sale of 55% of the entire issued share capital of Acerta to AstraZeneca for unconditional payments of USD 4 billion and WeWork in its multibillion dollar investment by SoftBank. In the field of Life Sciences and Technology, Ruud and his team advise domestic and international clients in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices sectors, from start-ups, investors to market leaders. NautaDutilh's Life Sciences team is ranked as tier 1 by The Legal 500. Within this team, Ruud as well as fellow corporate expert Rebecca Pinto "both deserve special mention for being crisp, clear, and strong communicators and for thinking about how to get the deal done" (Legal500, 2019). Chambers describes him as "Corporate/M&A Foreign Expert for the Netherlands" and praises Ruud "for his pragmatic and responsive approach". Ruud has completed the Grotius Academy specialisation course on securities in 2007, after graduating from Maastricht University in 2001. Between 2011 and 2016, Ruud headed the corporate practice of NautaDutilh's New York office. Given his established American client base, he travels to the U.S. on a regular basis.