Decision Dutch Supreme Court about Directors liability

Arnaud Booij and Charlotte Bikkers have achieved a great success in a major case before the Dutch Supreme Court relating the personal liability of Directors for tax claims of a company of which the actual place of management was transferred from The Netherlands to Israel. The case was about the explanation of the wording of article 41 of the Dutch Tax Collection Act, that indicates that persons that are in charge of the transfer of the management could be liable, unless they prove that the non-payment of the taxes by the company was not caused by them.

The Supreme Court decided that the interpretation of this article by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal was not right. A managing director who was actually not in charge of the transfer of the management, could not be held liable. The directors that were considered to be in charge, could in principle be held liable, but they should get the opportunity to prove that the non-payment of taxes was due to other reasons than reasons that could be linked to acts they have performed. The case in of importance as it is now clear that if it it is clear that a person was in charge of the transfer of the management of the company to an other jurisdiction, this person is only liable if he proves that the non-payment is not caused by certain actions or negligence from his side.

Read the ECLI documents via the links below:
– https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:HR:2018:637
– https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:HR:2018:640
– https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:HR:2018:506