After a company has been declared bankrupt, the liquidator in charge of the bankrupt estate will process personal data on that bankrupt company’s behalf. The liquidator would then be considered a so-called data controller within the meaning of the Dutch Data Protection Act (DDPA).

A Dutch Court of Appeal recently upheld a lower court’s decision that a liquidator has the right to access data concerning the administration of a bankrupt company, the data of which are kept by a third party. It also held that this right, however, does not imply that the third party must provide the data in an orderly manner without being adequately compensated for it.

Introduction
Facts
Decision
Comment

Introduction

In geval van faillissement zijn er vaak meerdere schuldeisers tussen wie de overgebleven gelden moeten worden verdeeld. Daarbij is het van belang of een vordering als boedelschuld of als concurrente vordering wordt aangemerkt. Schuldeisers met een boedelvordering hebben voorrang op concurrente schuldeisers en krijgen vaak een groter deel van hun vordering vergoed. Het is voor een schuldeiser dus van belang dat een vordering als boedelvordering wordt aangemerkt.

In het faillissement geldt een verlicht ontslagregime. Daarmee zijn faillissementsprocedures aantrekkelijk voor ondernemers om hun personeelsbestand te saneren. De vraag is echter of de faillissementsaangifte hiervoor mag worden gebruikt. In dit artikel zal worden ingegaan op het inzetten van het faillissementsrecht om de arbeidsrechtelijke bescherming van werknemers te omzeilen. Wanneer is sprake van misbruik van de eigen faillissementsaangifte?

Recente zaak: faillissement van een schoenenhandel

Recent developments

In Belgium and France he is known well enough, and his services are being used for years already in the United States and Great Britain: the silent pre-pack administrator. The task of a silent pre-pack administrator is to negotiate and perform what is known among lawyers as a pre-pack. In the early stages of a bankruptcy, the silent pre-pack administrator (and future receiver) works secretly on a restart of the company.

International structures as used by multinational companies typically could include limited partnerships or general partnerships. If the Netherlands is involved in these international structures, these partnerships may be set up in such a way that they qualify as transparent for Dutch tax purposes. Further, partnerships could be used to manage the recognition of taxable income (for example, the so called CV‐BV structures). ThisGT Alert may be helpful in further managing and controlling the tax risks within such structures.

In the October 2012 Newsflash, we informed you about the notion of “successive terms of employment” and the consequences associated herewith. We discussed the Dutch Supreme Court’s recent Van Tuinen decision, in which the Court limited the doctrine of successive terms of employment after insolvency by following the case law pertaining to the probationary period.

In recent years Dutch banks have established a practice of creating undisclosed rights of pledge (stil pandrecht) on all current and future receivables of their borrowers in an easy way and without the borrower's involvement. In the Supreme Court's ruling of 3 February 2012 (HR 3 February 2012, LJN BT6947), this practice was unsuccessfully put to the test by a bankruptcy trustee, who contested the alleged right of pledge of ING Bank on receivables of its bankrupt client.