Sébastien De Rey is Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam, teaching specific contracts, contract law, and European contract law. He is also visiting Professor at UCLouvain, where he lectures on European and comparative contract law and tort law, and he teaches the law of obligations at the Royal Military Academy in Brussels. His research focuses on contract and tort law, with particular emphasis on private law remedies and sanctions. He is also a member of the Commission responsible for reforming the Belgian Civil Code, serving on the subcommittee for book 7 on specific contracts.

After completing his law studies in Kortrijk, Leuven, and Switzerland (magna cum laude, 2014), he obtained his PhD from KU Leuven in 2018 with a dissertation on non-monetary relief (Herstel in natura, die Keure, 2019, 927 p.), funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO). He subsequently held postdoctoral research positions at the City University of Hong Kong, Centre for Chinese and Comparative Law (2019–20), and at KU Leuven’s Institute for the Law of Obligations (2020–22). He was visiting professor at ULiège and visiting researcher at Leiden University, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, the University of Zurich, and Université Paris II – Panthéon-Assas.

He is actively involved in several national and international research groups, including as co-chair of the International Network for Law and Apology Research (INLAR), national reporter of the Institute for European Tort Law in Vienna (ECTIL), member of the Association Henri Capitant, fellow at the Centre for Chinese and Comparative Law (Hong Kong), and member of the Séminaire Franco-belge en droit des obligations (Paris I – Sorbonne and UCLouvain). He serves as a member of the editorial boards of front-rank Belgian law journals, such as Rechtskundig Weekblad (RW), Tijdschrift voor Belgisch Burgerlijk Recht/Revue Générale de Droit Civil (TBBR/RGDC) and the Dutch journal Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Burgerlijk Recht (NTBR), and as a collaborator of the Revue de droit international et de droit comparé (RDIDC). In 2017, he was awarded the TPR Prize for his article ‘Sorry?! Apologies as a Legal Remedy under the Law of Torts' (TPR 2017, pp. 1153–1213).