ARTICLE · 15 MARCH 1996

Mergers & Acquisitions In The Netherlands - Environmental Liability Issues

Loeff Claeys Verbeke

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NetherlandsEmployment and HR

Introduction

The issue of environmental liabilities plays an increasingly important role in the Mergers & Acquisitions practice in the Netherlands. Sellers and Purchasers must take in-depth advice to be fully made aware of the potential pitfalls. The State has various means of, inter alia, recovering clean-up costs from (previous and current) owners and users of polluted land.

It is, in view of these contingent liabilities, not uncommon for parties to consider the interposition of separate legal entities, as well as asset (i.e. immovable property) transfers to other entities, with the aim of distancing the ultimate shareholders from (environmental) liabilities. This occurs both intra-group, as well as in the framework of mergers and acquisitions.

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