Track record

Hidde represented a purchaser in a transaction involving the transfer of an entire bookshop business. The seller was declared bankrupt shortly afterwards. The trustee sued the purchaser on the basis of the actio pauliana in bankruptcy. Both the district court and the Court of Appeal dismissed the trustee’s claims.

Hidde represented the director of a transport company whom the bankruptcy trustee had held liable for the entire deficit in bankruptcy. The district court had granted the claim at first instance. On appeal, the director ultimately prevailed. The Court of Appeal held that it had not been established that manifestly improper management was an important cause of the bankruptcies. Although the annual accounts had been filed more than eleven months late, the director succeeded in rebutting the statutory presumption in Article 2:248(2) Dutch Civil Code.

Hidde represented a creditor in bankruptcy who, unlike the other creditors, had not received any distribution. The trustee had agreed and allowed a third party (the buyer of the business in the bankruptcy) to pay the admitted creditors a fixed percentage of their claims. However, the trustee disputed the claim of this particular creditor. After the claim was eventually admitted, it was established between the trustee and the buyer that the buyer was not obliged to pay this creditor after all. The trustee was held liable both in his capacity and personally on the grounds that he had acted unlawfully by agreeing to a distribution by a third party contrary to the statutory pari passu principle, thereby allowing this creditor to be treated differently from the others. The district court (and later the Court of Appeal) upheld the claim and ordered the trustee to pay the amount the creditor should have received under the arrangement with the buyer, plus interest.