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October 2021

Newsletter.

Dear Members,

We are pleased to welcome you to the first edition of the association’s newsletter. During the upcoming first general membership meeting on November 4, we will cover the founding principles and objectives for the association in more detail. However, in short, the objective of the association is to contribute to the continuous improvement of the quality of the Dutch restructuring practice. More information is available on our website at https://dutchrestructuringassociation.com.

In this newsletter we will cover the following topics:
  • Inform you about – and Invite you to - the association’s first general membership meeting which will be held on November 4th.
  • Provide you with an overview of the association's committees
  • Give you an initial committee update for the Current Events committee
  • Inform you about our membership drive so far. We are proud to let you know that over 150 members have already joined the association in just a few short months.
You can expect to receive a newsletter from us at the beginning of each quarter of the year. While the format of our newsletter will no doubt evolve over time, we aim to provide you with updates on the Association, the activities of its committees, upcoming events, and key news about restructuring topics and the people who are active in the Dutch restructuring community.

We encourage you to regularly check the association's web site because the web site will provide you with more real-time content and information.

I. Upcoming events – first general membership meeting

Date and time
November 4 2021 at 13:00 – 18:30

Location
Deloitte Amsterdam

Address
Gustav Mahlerlaan 2970, 1081 LA

Directions »
The board and the committee members will briefly present themselves to the membership during the meeting. The committees will also outline their activities and objectives for the upcoming year.

After the introductions, the meeting will focus on providing the latest updates on the WHOA (the Dutch Scheme).

Specifically, the program is as follows:
 
12:30 – 13:00 
Event registration & welcome
 
13:00 – 13:15
 
Introduction by the association's board
 
13:15 – 14:00
 
Introduction of the various committees
 
14:00 – 15:00 WHOA thoughts and experiences from the perspective of the judges.
A panel of judges will discuss their early thoughts on the "WHOA in practice"

Speakers: Mark Bosch, Elsbeth de Vos, Marjette Wouters, en Femke Damsteegt-Molier
 
15:00 – 15:30
 
Break
 
15:30 – 16:00 Providing financial information in a WHOA case; what is and isn’t required. Quality requirements and lessons learned from WHOA cases
Financial advisors will provide their perspective and how these vary depending on the size of the company

Speakers: Lennart Verhoef (EY) en Roelof van der Wielen (Uno Advies)
 
16:00 – 16:30 Tax authorities on the restructuring of a company's tax claims
Representatives of the Dutch tax authorities discuss this topic both in general terms and, specifically, in the context of a WHOA

Speakers: Frits Gill en Richard van Lambalgen (both in leading positions at the Dutch tax authorities)
 
16:30 – 17:45 WHOA cases; roundtable discussion about key takeaways and lessons learned from the early WHOA cases
The Evaluation and Best Practices committee will moderate this discussion about practical lessons from the key players in a WHOA process (incl. banks, restructuring experts, judges, lawyers, financial advisors, and tax authorities

Speakers: Rutger Schimmelpenninck, Mark Bosch (judge), Michael Broeders (Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer), Judith Renders (BOLD Turnaround), Bas van Weert (Rabobank Nederland), Henri Bentfort van Valkenburg (DVDW), Richard van Lambalgen (Tax Authorities)
 
17:45 – 18:30
 
Drinks & social
 

Please note that the agenda has changed slightly from our earlier program announcement! We have added a very insightful session presented by the tax authorities.

Representatives of the Dutch tax department will treat the following topics:
  • The tax department’s approach with respect to class formation andcreditors who are not included in the plan;
  • How the tax authorities deal with the 20% rule;
  • Temporary relief measures in the context of the Corona crisis;
  • Engaging with the appropriate people at the tax department when involved in a WHOA case.
If you haven’t confirmed your attendance for the Nov 4th meeting, you can do so through the following link:
 
Register for the meeting

II. The association's committees

As you are probably aware, we have set up the following operating committees run by experienced people with a passion for restructuring work:
 
Education Committee
Wim Holterman (Chair), Reinout Vriesendorp, Gijs de Reuver, Jacomijn Vels, Sebastiaan van den Berg
 
Evaluation & Best Practices Committee Rutger Schimmelpenninck (Chair), Mincke Melissen, Pim Willems
 
Knowledge Development Committee  Michael Veder (Chair), Teun Struycken, Anne Mennens, Axel Jacobs, Lennart Verhoef, Ilona Wolffram-van Doorn
 
Current Events Committee Karen Harmsen (Chair), Kaj Messelink, Jantine Hak, Johan Jol, Géza Orbán, Marlous de Groot, Gert-Jan Boon, Peter Wolterman, Floortje van Tilburg
 
International Committee Vincent Vroom (Chair), Bob Wessels, Peter Neuteboom, Jenny Davidson, Diederick van der Plas, Lucas Kortmann, Krijn Hoogenboezem
 
Judicial Wing Mark Bosch, Femke Damsteegt, Elsbeth de Vos, Marjette Wouters, Jacqueline Frima, Mincke Melissen, Ron Cats

The committees have been working hard on their respective agendas. In this issue, we provide more detail on the Current Events committee’s current project.

III. Committee update – Current Events

The committee is developing a “current events platform.” This platform will become a central part of the DRA website and provide our members with an excellent “news content” tool. The idea is to provide our members with an interactive, easy-to-use (and configure) tool to manage and receive relevant, up-to-date, news content related to the restructuring practice.

Some of the features of the platform consist of the following:
  • At-a-glance overview of all relevant news content
  • More in-depth, interactive content whereby members will be able to respond (and post) to the content
  • Ability for members to submit content and determine how widely the content can be shared (i.e. members only, public/confidential, etc.)
  • Ability for members to sign up for regular periodic news updates whereby chosen relevant content is automatically sent to them
  • The platform will provide the functionality to separate “membership only content” from general publicly available content
The tool is under development and we hope to be able to go live with the tool at, or around, the date of our first meeting.

IV. Membership update

We are proud to inform you that more than 150 members have already joined the association. The membership base keeps growing every week. We are extremely pleased with this result after just a few short months since our launch.

We are particularly excited about our members’ support and enthusiasm for the association. This serves as a confirmation of their willingness and interest to contribute to the association’s objectives and mission.

The diversity of our membership is an important asset to the Association. Our membership is comprised of lawyers, judges, bankers, investors, managers, board members, financial advisors, restructuring advisors, interim restructuring managers, as well as faculty and students from the academic community who have an interest in the restructuring process and community.

Membership is open to anyone who has an interest in domestic or international restructurings and who wants to further develop and professionalize the restructuring community. We welcome not only those involved in large situations but also those who are active in the SME (small & medium enterprises) segment.

Our current membership breaks down as follows:
The association currently has 11 International members. International members live and work outside of the Netherlands. The International committee will, in the near future, organize an introductory event specifically targeted to our International members.

V. LinkedIn group

We have set up a LinkedIn group, exclusively for our members. We will use this channel of communication to announce events and other news. Members can join this group by using the following link:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12504704/
That is it for now. The board looks forward to meeting all of you during our first membership meeting on November 4th.

See you then!

Best regards,
On behalf of the Board

Nicolaes Tollenaar, Chairman