The Introduction of a New Shareholder Dispute Resolution System in the Netherlands

The Dutch Parliament has recently made some radical changes in the system to regulate shareholder disputes in the Netherlands. The current system is flawed and underused. Shareholder disputes are mainly solved through an expensive bypass via the so-called inquiry-procedure at the Enterprise Chamber (EC). In the new system, the EC will be the only competent court for shareholder disputes. The relevant criteria are clarified and expanded. The procedure will be less formal and the EC can decide on related claims too. As a result, the new system aims to facilitate a swift settlement of all claims and conflicts between the parties involved in a shareholder dispute. A comparison with the highly used and popular Belgian system shows that there are some interesting differences. This article concludes by predicting that the new Dutch dispute regulation will be heavily used and will make the inquiry-procedure superfluous.