{"id":30518,"date":"2020-05-27T15:28:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T15:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelegalcompany.nl\/?p=30518"},"modified":"2026-09-02T17:32:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:32:20","slug":"whoa-bill-opportunity-or-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelegalcompany.nl\/en\/whoa-bill-opportunity-or-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"WHOA bill: opportunity or threat?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>The Act on the Confirmation of Extrajudicial Restructuring Plans (Wet Homologatie Onderhands Akkoord, hereinafter WHOA) has been in the works for years. Minister for Legal Protection Sander Dekker submitted this bill to the House of Representatives in the middle of last year. On 26 May 2020, the act was adopted unanimously by the House of Representatives. But what opportunities and\/or threats lie hidden in the WHOA?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>WHOA<br \/><\/strong>In short, this act means that all creditors are required to cooperate with an out-of-court agreement to write off (part of) a debt. A kind of compulsory agreement, which must be found reasonable by a judge. It gives struggling companies the opportunity to restructure without bankruptcy or suspension of payment, and to make a fresh start. This is also known as the so-called pre-pack method.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Suspension of payment<br \/><\/strong>Here, there is a postponement of payment, whereby the business continues to operate but the creditors cannot claim their debt for a certain period. As a result, the struggling company gets the opportunity to restructure the business. However, if the company turns out not to be viable and\/or cannot offer creditors a satisfactory arrangement, the administrator is required to still file for bankruptcy. In a situation of suspension of payment, it is necessary for all creditors to agree to writing off part of the debt. If not all creditors cooperate with this, bankruptcy still follows.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Out-of-court compulsory agreement<br \/><\/strong><span style=\"font-size: inherit;\">An intermediate solution is that, in a suspension-of-payment situation, an out-of-court agreement is drawn up. Not all creditors need to take part in this. If 50% of the creditors (who moreover account for 50% of the outstanding debt amount) agree, the judge will approve such an agreement. In that case, the other 50% of creditors will also be bound by it. This is called confirmation (homologation) of the agreement. The WHOA act speeds up this process, since under this act all creditors are immediately required to cooperate with (partially) writing off the debt.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Is the WHOA an opportunity or a threat?<br \/><\/strong>For companies in dire straits, the question is to what extent this new act will offer opportunities to restructure via the WHOA, in order to then make a fresh start afterwards. This depends heavily on the sector in which the company operates. Companies in sectors that are very labour-intensive, i.e. where most of the costs lie in personnel, will actually be worse off under this act. To prevent abuse via the WHOA, it has been explicitly determined that the WHOA does not apply to employment contracts. Personnel cannot therefore be trimmed away using this act. It is not uncommon for personnel costs specifically to be the reason things go wrong, and it is precisely those costs that then need to be reduced. This will be made more difficult by this act, because it significantly strengthens the rights of employees compared to employees who are part of a bankruptcy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The idea that more companies will venture a fresh start because of the WHOA seems more of a political wish than reality. The strong rights of employees are the main cause of this. Because of these rights, fresh-start situations will be kept to a minimum. Ultimately, this could result in even more employees ending up out of work. Moreover, the healthy parts of the business would then disappear too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong>Opportunity\/threat: debtor makes use of the WHOA<br \/><\/strong>The danger also lies in the fact that debtors may see the WHOA as an opportunity to undo part of the claim. However, as a rule the contractual relationship will then still continue to exist, and thereby employment is also partly preserved. In the event of the client&#8217;s bankruptcy, of course, nothing at all can be recovered. In that respect, the WHOA can indeed offer opportunities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In short, the WHOA is only an enrichment if the debt burden is mainly caused by items other than personnel and revenue remains stable. In the event of a decline in revenue due to corona, there is structurally less work, and the workforce should then also have to shrink accordingly. Applying for NOW in combination with a reorganisation is then more obvious (if there is still time for that).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">As an entrepreneur, do you need individual legal advice or support regarding restructuring, the WHOA or a fresh start? Then it is advisable to contact a lawyer. The Legal Company can of course help you with this. Get in <a href=\"https:\/\/thelegalcompany.nl\/contact\/\">touch<\/a> with us<\/span> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">via:<\/span> <\/strong><a href=\"mailto:info@thelegalcompany.nl\"><strong>info@thelegalcompany.nl<\/strong><\/a><strong> <span style=\"color: #000000;\">or call <span style=\"color: #ff5500;\">020-3450152<\/span>.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>This article was written in collaboration with Henk Cornelisse of Clean Totaal, a knowledge platform for professional cleaning. See this <\/em><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/cleantotaal.nl\/artikelen\/is-whoa-kans-of-bedreiging-voor-schoonmaaksector\/\"><em>blog<\/em><\/a><em> for the article written specifically for the cleaning industry.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em>Nothing changes as often as laws and regulations. We would like to point out that our blogs may no longer be in line with current laws and regulations and may therefore be outdated. If you have questions or a problem relating to this blog, or if you require legal assistance, please contact us.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"page_builder":"","iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":"","_et_pb_custom_css":""},"categories":[29,32],"tags":[148],"class_list":["post-30518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contractenrecht","category-ondernemingsrecht","tag-whoa"],"acf":[],"_et_pb_custom_css":"","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>WHOA bill: opportunity or threat? - The Legal Company<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Op 26 mei 2020 is de wet met algemene stemmen aangenomen door de tweede kamer. 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