Abstract
The author highlights the pivotal role of justice in flexible and simple corporate law. He focuses on the significance of the notion of reasonableness and fairness in corporate law and on the way in which the fundamental rights embodied in the European Convention on Human Rights influence the relations between the shareholders within a company. He is of the opinion that reasonableness, fairness and fundamental rights will remain lasting elements of Dutch company law. A consequence of this trend is that courts will play a pivotal role in corporate law.
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References
John Ralston Saul, The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World (London, Atlantic 2006) p. xi.
Sections 152–164 and sections 262–274 of Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code.
I refer to the various drafts which have been published by the Ministry of Justice, available at: http://www.minjus.nl.
On this topic, see Kenneth Dau-Schmidt and Carman L. Brun, ‘Lost in Translation: The Economic Analysis of Law in the United States and Europe’, 44 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law (2006) p. 606.
See, for instance, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea (London, Phoenix 2005) at p. xv: ‘The most important organization in the world is the company: the basis of the prosperity of the West and the best hope for the future of the rest of the world’, and at p. xxi: ‘The limited liability corporation is the greatest single discovery of modern times.’ For an older book in which the importance of the company was underlined, see G. Ripert, Aspects juridiques du capitalisme moderne (Paris, Librairie Générale de Droit et de Jurisprudence 1946). See especially chapter II: l’ère des sociétés par actions.
See Louis Kaplow and Steven Shavell, Fairness versus Welfare (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press 2002). A well-known comparative law book — Reinier Kraakman’s The Anatomy of Corporate Law: A Comparative and Functional Approach (New York, Oxford University Press 2004) — seems to take the same approach: ‘more particularly, the appropriate goal of corporate law is to advance corporate welfare of a firm’s shareholders, employees, suppliers and customers…’ (.p. 18).
On this theme, see the excellent essay by the American historian James C. Kennedy, De deugden van een gidsland, burgerschap en democratie in Nederland (Amsterdam, Bakker 2005).
See, for instance, Hoge Raad 28 May 2004, Jurisprudentie Onderneming en Recht (2004) p. 342.
On this subject, see Maarten J. Kroeze, ‘The Companies and Business Court as a specialized court’, Ondernemingsrecht (2007) pp. 86–91; and Jack B. Jacobs, ‘The role of specialized courts in resolving corporate governance disputes in the United States and the EU: an American’s perspective’, Ondernemingsrecht (2007) pp. 80–85.
The current exit right for a minority shareholder can be found in section 343 of Book 2 of the Dutch Civil Code.
European Court of Human Rights, 25 July 2002, Jurisprudentie Onderneming en Recht (2003) p. 111; and European Court of Human Rights, 7 November 2002, Jurisprudentie Onderneming en Recht (2002) p. 112.
Hoge Raad 31 December 1993, Nederlandse Jurisprudentie (1994) p. 436.
European Court of Human Rights, 24 October 1995, Nederlandse Jurisprudentie (1996) p. 375.
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This speech was delivered at a conference on comparative private company law organised by the Dutch Ministry of Justice in June 2006.
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Timmerman, V. Welfare, Fairness and the Role of Courts in a Simple and Flexible Private Company Law. Eur Bus Org Law Rev 8, 325–334 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1017/S1566752907003254
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1566752907003254