Obolos, een toonaangevend Gents advocatenkantoor, staat garant voor topkwaliteit in de zakelijke en fiscale vermogensadvocatuur.
Obolos, een toonaangevend Gents advocatenkantoor, staat garant voor topkwaliteit in de zakelijke en fiscale vermogensadvocatuur.
Obolos, een toonaangevend Gents advocatenkantoor, staat garant voor topkwaliteit in de zakelijke en fiscale vermogensadvocatuur.
Obolos, een toonaangevend Gents advocatenkantoor, staat garant voor topkwaliteit in de zakelijke en fiscale vermogensadvocatuur.

Your loyal and reliable law firm.

Obolos, a leading Ghent law firm, guarantees excellence in business and tax asset law. Our Obolos team of passionate attorneys combines expertise in tax law, contract law, property law, corporate law, family estate law and inheritance law.

We advise and support a loyal client base consisting of family businesses, listed companies, multinationals, start-ups, investment vehicles, private equity funds, nonprofit organisations, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals.

Obolos combines expertise with experience and creativity. Our advice is accurate, practical and to the point, without losing sight of the human aspect. We always strive to provide comfort and peace of mind to our clients.

We assist you with various matters including gifts and wills, control structures (such as partnerships or foundations), care proxies, marriage and co-living agreements, inheritance agreements, family settlements, and estate returns.

Obolos provides support for both share and asset deals.

We assist you with shareholders’ agreements, articles of association, and employee participation.

We draft cooperation contracts, joint ventures, management contracts, and financing contracts on your behalf.

We assist you with asset transactions, rulings, mergers, demergers, migrations, GRP (Group Reorganisation Process), and liquidations.

Obolos provides advisory services for term sheets, investment agreements, and shareholders’ agreements.

We provide advice on the division of assets following inheritance or divorce, as well as disputes related to wills or gifts.

Obolos assists its clients in family property disputes. Family property law is a complex area of law. The technicality of matrimonial property law and gift and inheritance law requires in-depth expertise to safeguard your client’s interests and make a difference. Our Obolos team has longstanding and distinct expertise in disputes involving divorce and relationship breakdown, death, gifts and wills.

You can rely on our expertise for tax advice, guidance, and assistance in resolving disputes.

You can count on our firm for representation in litigation, proceedings, arbitration, and mediation.

What we can help you with:

Ready to meet us?

Henri
Derycke

Wim
Vandenberghe

Alexander
Komen

Astrid
Weytens

Get to know our team →
Get to know our team →

A name with meaning.

Obolos stands for wisdom, protection and prosperity – values that drive our law firm in everything we do. But why exactly Obolos? What meaning does this name carry and how does it align with our role as a guide in complex legal and tax processes?

Read our story →
Read our story →
Obolos Locatie
Would you like more information or to make an appointment with one of our lawyers? Please contact our secretariat.

The administrative office is available from 9 am till 12:30 pm and from 1:30 pm till 5 pm.

Obolos
Vrijheidslaan 27 – 9000 Ghent

+32 9 222 41 07
info@obolos.be
Contact us →
Contact us →

A new name, an ancient symbol

‘Obolos’ profiles itself as a high quality law firm within a niche of corporate law.

The firm was founded in 2005 under the name “Derycke & Vandenberghe lawyers.

A good 20 years later, there was a growing realization that, despite the firm’s name recognition and reputation, a new name would help the growth of younger talent and raise the profile of younger partners and associates.

Thus began a collective search for a suitable name. A name with meaning, anchored in a past and universally recognizable, with symbolic power as well as meaning within our fields of work.

Obolos ultimately had our preference.

What is an obolos?

‘Obolos’ is an ancient Greek currency whose Dutch name sounds familiar to all: obool.

Originally, the obool is a measure by which weights were expressed. No one knows when its name and use originated, but it is reasonably assumed that its historical origins are at least three thousand years old. It is also a coin with an extremely long history: the last obool was minted around 1700.

In classical Greece, the coin was commonly used throughout the sphere of influence of Greek civilization. Its best-known version is the Athenian: a silver coin with the image of patron goddess Athena on the obverse and an owl on the reverse, often in the company of an olive branch.

As a result, the coin has become the bearer of a rich symbolism. Athena is the goddess of wisdom and, armed if necessary, protects civilization. The owl is to this day the symbol par excellence of wisdom and insight, and the ancients also saw the owl as a messenger of prosperity and destiny (“fortuna”). Even the olive branch, after thousands of years, has lost nothing of its power as a symbol of peace and prosperity….

Wisdom, prosperity, protection … all are the values for which the “new” Obolos wants to stand. Your interests, your prosperity must be protected by our commitment. A commitment in decisiveness and wisdom.

So universal was the obool that it was even considered a mythological currency. In ancient Greece, the obool was given to allow the deceased to reach Hades, the afterlife. Hades now could only be reached by crossing the subterranean river Styx by ferry, a ferry operated by Charon the gloomy ferryman.

An unpaid Charon meant no crossing and therefore no peace of soul.

The connection to our field of work

As a consulting firm, Obolos has profiled itself as a supporting partner within processes of transformation: business transfers, complex reorganizations, structured wealth planning, …

Our lawyers realize that these processes have much in common with a journey: they require effort, time and … a goal. The obool is therefore the symbol of the contribution our office intends to make to the realization of your trajectory. Obolos wants to be your experienced guide, protect your well-being, reach your goal with you. Your passport and your pass currency.

Transactions, transformations, succession: no process can be properly managed without fiscal support. The words of American statesman Benjamin Franklin have lost nothing of their accuracy: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Not surprisingly does the obool also symbolizes the tax/burden that each of these events undergoes. But the right burden is only that which is inescapable. The ferryman must be paid but paid correctly. Obolos also provides tax advice for your proposed transactions and assists you with tax analyses and optimizations.

Obolos as guide and counselor: practical legal wisdom.

A new name, an ancient symbol

‘Obolos’ profiles itself as a high quality law firm within a niche of corporate law.

The firm was founded in 2005 under the name “Derycke & Vandenberghe lawyers.

A good 20 years later, there was a growing realization that, despite the firm’s name recognition and reputation, a new name would help the growth of younger talent and raise the profile of younger partners and associates.

Thus began a collective search for a suitable name. A name with meaning, anchored in a past and universally recognizable, with symbolic power as well as meaning within our fields of work.

Obolos ultimately had our preference.

What is an obolos?

‘Obolos’ is an ancient Greek currency whose Dutch name sounds familiar to all: obool.

Originally, the obool is a measure by which weights were expressed. No one knows when its name and use originated, but it is reasonably assumed that its historical origins are at least three thousand years old. It is also a coin with an extremely long history: the last obool was minted around 1700.

In classical Greece, the coin was commonly used throughout the sphere of influence of Greek civilization. Its best-known version is the Athenian: a silver coin with the image of patron goddess Athena on the obverse and an owl on the reverse, often in the company of an olive branch.

As a result, the coin has become the bearer of a rich symbolism. Athena is the goddess of wisdom and, armed if necessary, protects civilization. The owl is to this day the symbol par excellence of wisdom and insight, and the ancients also saw the owl as a messenger of prosperity and destiny (“fortuna”). Even the olive branch, after thousands of years, has lost nothing of its power as a symbol of peace and prosperity….

Wisdom, prosperity, protection … all are the values for which the “new” Obolos wants to stand. Your interests, your prosperity must be protected by our commitment. A commitment in decisiveness and wisdom.

So universal was the obool that it was even considered a mythological currency. In ancient Greece, the obool was given to allow the deceased to reach Hades, the afterlife. Hades now could only be reached by crossing the subterranean river Styx by ferry, a ferry operated by Charon the gloomy ferryman.

An unpaid Charon meant no crossing and therefore no peace of soul.

The connection to our field of work

As a consulting firm, Obolos has profiled itself as a supporting partner within processes of transformation: business transfers, complex reorganizations, structured wealth planning, …

Our lawyers realize that these processes have much in common with a journey: they require effort, time and … a goal. The obool is therefore the symbol of the contribution our office intends to make to the realization of your trajectory. Obolos wants to be your experienced guide, protect your well-being, reach your goal with you. Your passport and your pass currency.

Transactions, transformations, succession: no process can be properly managed without fiscal support. The words of American statesman Benjamin Franklin have lost nothing of their accuracy: “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Not surprisingly does the obool also symbolizes the tax/burden that each of these events undergoes. But the right burden is only that which is inescapable. The ferryman must be paid but paid correctly. Obolos also provides tax advice for your proposed transactions and assists you with tax analyses and optimizations.

Obolos as guide and counselor: practical legal wisdom.