Juridisch management en bestuurdersaansprakelijkheid in de mkb-praktijk: een theoretisch en empirisch onderzoek

Legal management can be defined as managing and controlling legal opportunities and risks within the company. This dissertation analyzes legal management within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), with a focus on limited liability companies (‘besloten vennootschappen’). It studies the possibilities for entrepreneurs, who do not have substantial legal knowledge at their disposal, how to design legal management within their companies.

This research consists of three parts. The first part describes the Managerial Law approach, in the context of theory development about legal management. Based on this business administration perspective on the law, a list of legal topics (a ‘legal agenda’) is drafted. These topics should be addressed by entrepreneurs of SMEs when implementing legal management within their companies. In the second part, the Managerial Law approach and the matching legal agenda are assessed on the basis of explorative and unique empirical research on their application in SME practice. In the final part, jurisprudence over the period 2016-2021 has been researched and the most frequent topics that led to (discussion about) director’s liability under private law are analyzed. From this jurisprudence, basic principles are derived that well-intentioned SME entrepreneurs should comply with in order to prevent themselves from director’s liability under private law or to limit the risk of such liability occurring.

Dissertation: http://hdl.handle.net/11370/2c75e06f-febd-41df-9daa-f775a567b89a