In 2019, the Dutch government presented a New Model Investment Agreement that seeks to contribute to the sustainability and inclusivity of future Dutch trade and investment policy. This article offers a critical analysis of the most relevant parts of the revised model text in order to appraise to what extent it could promote sustainability and inclusivity. It starts by providing an overview of the Dutch BIT (Bilateral Investment Treaty) programme, where the role of the Netherlands as a favourite conduit country for global FDI is highlighted. In the article, we identify the reasons why the Netherlands became a preferred jurisdiction for foreign investors and the negative implications for governments and their policy space to advance sustainable development. The 2019 model text is expressly set out to achieve a fairer system and to protect ‘sustainable investment in the interest of development’. While displaying a welcome engagement with key values of sustainable development, this article identifies a number of weaknesses of the 2019 model text. Some of the most criticised substantive and procedural provisions are being reproduced in the model text, including the reiteration of investors’ legitimate expectation as an enforceable right, the inclusion of an umbrella clause, and the unaltered broad coverage of investments. Most notably, the model text continues to marginalise the interests of investment-affected communities and stakeholders, while bestowing exclusive rights and privileges on foreign investors. The article concludes by hinting at possible reforms to better align existing and future Dutch investment treaties with the sustainable development goals.

The increasing volume of waste generated globally is one of the most prominent environmental issues we face today. Companies responsible for the treatment or disposal of waste are therefore among the key actors in fostering a sustainable future. Yet the waste industry has often been characterised as a criminogenic one, causing environmental harm which disproportionately impacts the world’s most vulnerable regions and populations. In this article, we illustrate how companies operating in global supply chains exploit legal and enforcement asymmetries and market complexities to trade waste with countries where facilities for environmentally sound treatment and disposal of waste are lacking. We draw on two contemporary cases of corporate misconduct in the Global South by companies with operating headquarters in the Global North: Seatrade and Probo Koala. We compare these cases building on theories about corporate and environmental crime and its enforcement. This explorative comparative analysis aims to identify the key drivers and dynamics of illegal waste dumping, while also exploring innovative ways to make the waste sector more environmentally responsible and prevent the future externalisation of environmental harm.

Since the introduction of a human rights chapter in the 2011 OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, National Contact Points (NCPs) have been increasingly dealing with specific instances referring to human rights violations by companies. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the human rights provisions are the most cited provisions of the Guidelines. Specific instances include allegations such as a company’s failure to implement human rights due diligence, to apply the principles of free, prior and informed consent, to take supply chain responsibility, and/or to comply with the right to cultural heritage. Of all topics, human rights due diligence and human rights supply chain responsibilities are most commonly referred to in complaints based on the Guidelines. This article focuses on how NCPs have handled these topics of human rights due diligence and supply chain responsibility in specific instances. The Dutch NCP has been selected because it is celebrated in literature as the ‘gold standard’ because of its composition including independent members, its forward-looking approach, and because it is one of the most active NCPs in the world. All decisions of the Dutch NCP concerning these two topics are analysed in the light of the decisions of four other NCPs (UK, Denmark, Germany and Norway). A doctrinal methodology is used to analyse similarities and differences between the argumentations of the five NCPs.

The past few decades have seen an increasing scrutiny of the impacts – both positive and negative – that companies have on the societies in which they operate. The search for adequate responses to such scrutiny is reflected in developments in the societal, political and academic debate on three separate but interrelated concepts: corporate social responsibility, business and human rights and responsible business conduct. The focus in this Special Issue will be on law and policy relating to responsible business conduct in global value chains. The contributions in this Special Issue identify relevant developments and institutions in the Netherlands, including rules and regulations related to trade, investment and corporate governance as well as cases related to corporate and consumer responsibilities, and assess their role in relation to the potential to provide a positive response to the concern about the human and environmental impacts of business activities. Together, they provide a multi-perspective view of relevant gaps and/or best practices with regard to regulatory governance in the Netherlands while at the same time enabling a comparative debate on the extent to which these diverse developments and institutions are in line with stated policy goals in this context both at national and EU levels. In doing so, this Special Issue aims to contribute to further coherence between national and EU policies with regard to RBC in global value chains and sustainable development.

This article addresses the question of how the Dutch regulatory and institutional setting enables policy coherence, specifically with regard to safeguarding stakeholders’ interests and promoting sustainable governance. To address this question, we engage with idiosyncratic theoretical notions in the Dutch corporate governance model. We follow the evolution of these notions in statutory company law and case law, their development in the Dutch Corporate Governance Code and their relation to the Enterprise Chamber as a unique institution. We establish how these theoretical views and practical institutions present significant means by which stakeholder concerns may be represented in the operation of company law and corporate governance more broadly and provide a number of ways in which these institutions and their operation can be further developed.

Verslag van het MvO-symposium van 29 mei 2019, met lezingen over hoe het economisch marktdenken het sociale in het ondernemingsrecht in de verdrukking heeft gebracht, social entrepreneurship en tot slot de rol van het vennootschapsrecht in relatie tot externaliteiten.

In deze bijdrage wordt aan de hand van rechtspraak van de Hoge Raad ingegaan op het ‘ernstig verwijt’ als maatstaf voor de beoordeling van de aansprakelijkheid van bestuurders en wordt aandacht besteed aan het leerstuk van selectieve betalingen. De auteur reflecteert op het nut en de noodzaak van het ‘ernstig verwijt’ bij de verschillende grondslagen van bestuurdersaansprakelijkheid en bespreekt de verwikkelingen rondom de (on)geoorloofdheid van selectieve betalingen.

This article focusses on the question whether quantitative modelling and simulation is useful for judicial forecasting, ex-ante testing of judicial policies, and (re)designing chains of organisations like the judicial chain. Specific attention is given to methods that can be used in the face of complexity and deep uncertainty. That is, when facing many substantial uncertainties. Complexity and uncertainty are first of all focused on. Subsequently, modelling methods for dealing with complexity and uncertainty are discussed in more detail, examples are given, and the process needed to build such models in a participatory way is discussed.

The matter for this research is the request from the municipality of Eindhoven to map youth nuisance in the city of Eindhoven and to find explanations for differences between neighborhoods in order to provide policy makers with guidance. Quantitative and qualitative methods tested the social disorganization theory. Factors that may explain youth nuisance are a high degree of ethnic heterogeneity, low neighborhood participation and a high level of physical deterioration. In addition, youngsters who have unstructured leisure time prefer a place to hang out where there is no social control. Policy makers can use these insights to design their neighborhoods.

De Verordening ter bevordering van billijkheid en transparantie voor zakelijke gebruikers van onlinetussenhandelsdiensten heeft het doel te zorgen voor een eerlijke, transparante en voorspelbare bedrijfsomgeving voor ondernemers (met name het midden- en kleinbedrijf) die online platforms gebruiken om hun goederen en/of diensten aan te bieden aan consumenten.
In dit artikel bespreken wij dat het wenselijk is dat door middel van deze verordening ex ante regels worden gesteld aan aanbieders van online platforms, met name omdat het huidige mededingingsinstrumentarium in de veranderende (digitale) economie niet altijd toereikend blijkt. Ook plaatsen wij enkele kanttekeningen bij de uitvoerbaarheid en het effect van de verordening in de praktijk, welke aspecten volgens ons niet voldoende geadresseerd zijn in de verordening.
Verordening (EU) 2019/1150 van het Europees Parlement en de Raad van 20 juni 2019 ter bevordering van billijkheid en transparantie voor zakelijke gebruikers van onlinetussenhandelsdiensten, PbEU 2019, L 186.

A series of imperfections in the CISG touching upon various areas are laid out thereby prompting the question of whether the Convention ought to be reformed. Two possibilities, namely supplementing the CISG with additional hard law instruments and drafting a new convention, i.e. CISG 2.0 are discussed and evaluated.

The Latvian Supreme Court recently used the ECJ Max Planck and Kreuziger judgments to explain how an employer can escape its obligation to compensate an employee for unused leave at the end of the employment relationship. The employer must prove that (a) it was possible for the employee to use the leave, and (b) the employer has in good time informed the employee that leave, if not used, might be lost and will not be compensated.

The Luxembourg Court of Appeal (Cour d’appel de Luxembourg) confirmed that an employee dismissed with notice and exempted from performing their work during the notice period is no longer bound by the non-competition duties arising from their loyalty obligation and can therefore engage in an employment contract with a direct competitor of their former employer during that exempted notice period. However, the Court of Appeal decided that, even if the former employee is in principle entitled to use the know-how and knowledge they acquired with their former employer, the poaching of clients during the notice period must, due to the facts and circumstances and in the light of the rules applicable in the financial sector, be considered as an unfair competition act and therefore constitutes serious misconduct justifying the termination of the employment contract with immediate effect.

Most scholars have argued that the Achbita judgment is not in line with the jurisprudence of the ECtHR, in particular with the Eweida judgment, and gives less protection to the employee than granted by the ECtHR. In this article, I provide a different perspective on the relation between both judgments and nuance the criticisms that followed the Achbita judgment.

The Italian Court of Cassation has interpreted a new provision referring to the obligations of the new service provider towards the employees of the former provider.