A Bill has been submitted to the Second Chamber extending the Act on the Collective Settlement of Mass Claims (WCAM) to bankruptcy situations.
The WCAM has been in force since 2005 and enables parties involved in mass claims to apply to the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to declare a settlement binding on all class members. Well-known examples of this are the Court's decisions in DES and in Dexia. A recent decision in Converium shows that the WCAM may also apply to the settlement of mass claims involving a majority of foreign parties.
The current Bill would mean that the remedies under the WCAM could also be available in case of a bankruptcy. This proposed extension arises from the bankruptcy of DSB Bank. Tens of thousands of DSB Bank customers have a potential claim against DSB based on an alleged breach of its duty of care. The settlement of all of these claims is labour-intensive, costly and time-consuming. The Bill provides that in such a situation the claims can be bundled in a WCAM agreement entered into by the bankruptcy trustee, which is subsequently declared binding by the Court of Appeal. Where these claims are concerned, the validation phase in the bankruptcy process is replaced by the proposed procedure.
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