The Netherlands, today, saw the launch of the Dutch Restructuring Association, or in Dutch Nederlandse Vereniging voor Herstructurering. It aims at continuing quality in work and services by the profession, including all professionals (lawyers and non-lawyers alike) in strong relatioship with the international restructuring community.
The press release says:
The Dutch Restructuring Association (“DRA”) brings together a broad global group of leading restructuring experts including lawyers, judges, financial advisors, interim managers, bankers, investors, policy makers and academics. The DRA also invites international restructuring professionals to join the association.
The goal of the DRA is to play a leading role in the continuous improvement of the way national and international restructurings are carried out in the Netherlands. It plans to achieve this by:
· Providing a platform for all restructuring participants to connect and share their knowledge and experience;
· Offering a world-class educational program;
· Developing best practices through the systematic assessment of cases, and
· Developing strong relationships with the international restructuring community to foster cross-border communication and cooperation and facilitate cross-border restructurings;
With the introduction of the Dutch “Scheme” on January 1, 2021, the Netherlands has implemented an important reform of its restructuring legislation. The DRA is convinced that Dutch restructurings will become more commonplace for both, in- and out-of-court, domestic and cross-border restructurings.
“The WHOA has broad grounds for jurisdiction and was designed to provide speed and flexibility, and for these reasons I believe it is an important new restructuring tool for cross-border restructurings. The DRA will promote cooperation between the Netherlands and the wider restructuring community, in order to ensure that it offers a speedy, reliable and cost-effective platform for resolving international cases,” said its Chairman, Nico Tollenaar.
For more information please visit the Association’s web site at https://dutchrestructuringassociation.com or contact Nicolaes Tollenaar per email at voorzitter@vereniging-herstructurering.nl or by phone on +31651845327.
Promising start
You will see on its website several committees functioning. I am a member of DRA’s international committee. What I personally think as significant is, that DRA focusses on developing and maintaining a high standing quality practice (not just exchanging business cards), is open for all concerned with or interested in restructuring (not limited to lawyers, but certainly also financial folks, banks, accountants, scholars etc., and – with observer status – judges). Where DRA will promote cooperation between the Netherlands’ professionals and the wider restructuring community, it certainly promisses to be not a ‘provincial’ club!