As of August 1, 2009, the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal will no longer be chaired by Huub Willems (pictured), who retires - only as chairman? see here - as of that date. In any event it will not be a full retirement, if only because he was appointed as corporate litigation professor at the University of Groningen as of June 1, 2009. Huub Willems has been by far the longest presiding chairman in modern history of the Enterprise Chamber (that started in 1971), covering the 1996-2009 period. In the '80s, he was also involved in some major cases, involving Ogem Holding and Verenigde Bedrijven Bredero. For some personal background information see, e.g.,here, here and here. For his television appearances see here.
The Enterprise Chamber is well known for its role in inquiry proceedings, a very popular and important avenue for corporate litigation in the Netherlands that does not exist as such in other countries (like the United States). During his chairmanship, the right of inquiry became increasingly important in the Dutch corporate litigation landscape. For some empirical data as to the use of inquiry proceedings throughout the years, see here. Although inquiry proceeding case law has generated criticism (see, e.g., here and here) and the legal framework of inquiry proceedings is under review (it is likely to undergo some tweeking in the coming period, see, e.g., here), inquiry proceeding case law by the Enterprise Chamber - that frequently also resulted in involvement of the Supreme Court, most recently in the case of KPNQwest - has unquestionably been a major driver of corporate governance developments/discussions in the Netherlands in the past decade (see for example the Dutch corporate governance code, influenced in part by inquiry proceeding case law). Huub Willems has played a central role in this. For an example see, e.g., here.
In a sense, his retirement is the end of an era. A nice, short oversight article of the 1996-2009 period in which Huub Willems chaired the Enterprise Chamber is available here. I fully concur with the concluding remarks.
Met het vertrek van Huub Willems als voorzitter van de Ondernemingskamer komt een einde aan een markante periode. Ongeacht wie zijn opvolger is zal deze het niet makkelijk hebben op zijn eigen wijze vorm te geven aan het voorzitterschap van de Ondernemingskamer. Ook voor de ‘gebruikers' van de Ondernemingskamer zal het wennen zijn en is het de vraag in hoeverre lijnen die in het verleden zijn uitgezet in de toekomst doorgetrokken zullen worden.
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