This blogpost was first published as an edited article in Business Magazine’s June 2016 edition (available here).

Directors at risk in the twilight zone

In the event of bankruptcy, creditors are entitled to disclosure of the bookkeeping of the estate under certain conditions. In its decision dated 8 April 2016 (ECLI:NL:HR:2016:612), the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that this right is limited and depends on the purpose of the disclosure. Creditors are not entitled to disclosure if the purpose is to retrieve information to support their claim against a third party.

Al sinds 2004 schrijft de MiFID richtlijn voor dat dat beleggingsondernemingen financiële instrumenten (waaronder verhandelbare derivaten) veilig en bankruptcy remote moeten aanhouden voor hun cliënten. In 2005 bleek waarom: bij het faillissement van Van der Hoop Bankiers bleek dat beleggers geen aanspraak meer hadden op hun derivaten, maar concurrent schuldeiser van de bank waren geworden.

De Minister van Justitie beloofde daarop met wettelijke bescherming te komen. Die is er nu.

Geen afgescheiden vermogen

In a recent judgment, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that in the event of a bankruptcy whereby the bankruptcy receiver has wrongfully collected receivables which were pledged to a secured creditor and the total value of the assets of the bankrupt estate was insufficient to pay all debts, the bankruptcy receiver was allowed to recover its salary from the proceeds of that wrongful collection with priority over the claim of that secured creditor.

On 5 February 2016, the Dutch Supreme Court (“Supreme Court“) ruled (ECLI:NL:HR:2016:199) that an estate claim (boedelvordering) based on damage suffered by a pledge holder, caused by the wrongful collection of claims encumbered by a right of pledge by a bankruptcy trustee, does not have priority over the estate claim relating to the remuneration of the trustee.

Before I hazard any kind of answer to the above, let me first declare my interest in the #Brexit / #Bremain debate, from the perspective of an insolvency lawyer.

So-called “Creditor Portals”, and other similarly titled electronic platforms by which insolvency practitioners typically circulate any meaningful information to creditors about insolvent estates, have been a bugbear of mine ever since they were first used a little while ago. Don’t get me wrong; I absolutely applaud the attempt which they represent to minimise the amount of unnecessary paperwork circulating around the country and the savings of cost which they bring to the administration of insolvent estates where the cost of copying and posting alone would be absolutely frightening today.

De wetsvoorstellen civielrechtelijk bestuursverbod en herziening strafbaarstelling faillissementsfraude behoren tot het Wetgevingsprogramma Herijking Faillissementsrecht en zijn gericht op fraudebestrijding.  De verwachting was dat beide wetsvoorstellen op 1 januari 2016 in werking zouden treden, maar dit is niet gehaald.

On 2 December 2015 the draft bill on modernization of bankruptcy proceedings entered into public consultation. The bill is part of the Dutch legislative programme to improve and modernize bankruptcy law, known as Wetgevingsprogramma Herijking faillissementsrecht in the Netherlands.

In a written statement this morning from Lord Faulks QC, Minister of State for Civil Justice, the government has announced that, from April 2016, insolvency litigation will no longer be exempt from what have been abbreviated to “the LASPO reforms”.