# What changed: immediate measures at the Enterprise Chamber and their limits
No confirmed change to the rules on onmiddellijke voorzieningen (immediate measures) ordered by the Ondernemingskamer (Enterprise Chamber) is recorded in the registry tracked by this page. The mechanism operates as it did before: the Chamber may order an immediate measure once an inquiry request is pending, without waiting for the inquiry itself to conclude, if the applicant shows urgent need. This page is for boards, minority shareholders and advisers who monitor governance disputes under Dutch law and need to know whether the position has moved.
Why this arises here
Immediate measures sit inside inquiry proceedings, the procedure most closely associated with disputes over corporate law and governance in the Netherlands. A shareholder, a works council or the company itself asks the Chamber to look into the policy and affairs of a company, and in the same or a later request asks for an interim order to hold the position while that inquiry runs. The Enterprise Chamber is a specialised division of a Dutch court, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal, not a separate tribunal. Because the underlying framework changes rarely and the practical boundaries move more often through case law than through legislation, this page exists to flag movement, not to describe a fixed set of numbers. Related change tracking on the filing side, such as penalties for late filing of annual accounts, follows the same discipline: report a confirmed change, or report that none exists.
The mechanics in short
An immediate measure is not a separate procedure. It is an order the Chamber attaches to a pending inquiry request, or occasionally to the inquiry itself once opened. The applicant must show that waiting for the ordinary course of the proceedings would cause harm that cannot be undone once a final decision comes. Typical orders suspend a director, appoint an outside director or supervisory member with defined powers, place shares under management with a third party, or restrict a shareholder's voting rights for the duration of the case. A measure lasts for a period the Chamber sets, usually tied to the progress of the underlying inquiry, and it can be varied or lifted on a fresh application if the position changes.
The threshold for granting a measure is not a fixed figure and none is published in a form this page can cite. The Chamber weighs urgency, the strength of the underlying complaint and the proportionality of the specific order against the company's ordinary conduct of business. Under the applicable rules, a request with no realistic prospect on the merits will not carry an immediate measure regardless of how urgent the applicant makes it sound.
What tracking a change actually means here
This page belongs to a series that tracks known movement in Dutch procedures rather than describing them once and leaving them static. Where a change is confirmed against an official publication, the position before and after, the date it takes effect and who has to act appear here with a citation. Where nothing is confirmed, as now, the honest content is the current mechanics, the limits that hold regardless of any pending change, and a note on the direction the position is discussed in professional practice, without a date attached to that direction. That distinction is the point of a tracked page: it changes when the registry changes, not on a fixed schedule of its own.
If you rely on a specific deadline or threshold connected to immediate measures, check it against the current text of the rule before you act. This page is updated at the next scheduled review once a change is confirmed, and not before.
What to check before you rely on this
Confirm four things before you build a decision on immediate measures. Whether an inquiry request has actually been filed, or is filed at the same time as the application for the measure. Whether the harm alleged is specific to the period before a final decision, rather than a general complaint about management. Whether the order requested is the narrowest one that addresses that harm. Whether the company has had a fair opportunity to respond before any order is made final. None of these four turns on a figure.
Measures the Enterprise Chamber can order
| Measure | What it does | Typical trigger |
|---|---|---|
| Suspension of a director or supervisory board member | Removes decision-making power for the duration of the case | Conduct that itself creates the harm under investigation |
| Appointment of an outside director or supervisory member | Adds an independent decision-maker with defined powers | Deadlock or a board unable to act impartially |
| Transfer of shares to a trustee | Moves voting or economic rights out of a disputed holder's control | Risk that a shareholder uses the position to frustrate the inquiry |
| Restriction of voting rights | Limits what a shareholder can decide while the case runs | Risk of an irreversible resolution before the case concludes |
What this does not cover
- This page does not state a deadline, a fee or a threshold connected to immediate measures, because none is confirmed in the registry at this review.
- It does not cover the inquiry procedure itself, only the interim order that can attach to it.
- It does not cover measures ordered by any body other than the Enterprise Chamber.
- It does not assess whether a specific company situation qualifies; that depends on facts this page does not have.
- It does not track changes outside corporate law and governance, even where a change elsewhere touches the same company.
Questions
Can an immediate measure be ordered before the Enterprise Chamber has decided to open an inquiry?
Yes. The Chamber can order an immediate measure once a request is pending, ahead of its decision on the inquiry itself, if the applicant shows urgency that cannot wait for that decision.
What happens to an immediate measure if the inquiry request is later refused?
The measure falls away with the request it was attached to, unless the Chamber has already varied or lifted it separately. A refused inquiry request leaves no independent basis for the interim order to continue.
About this note
Written by Eva Kuipers, who advises on governance disputes, including matters before the Enterprise Chamber conducted with Dutch-qualified counsel of record. Her responsibility zone covers governance and the Enterprise Chamber across the firm's coverage.
Where this fits
If this pattern fits a live situation, we can set out the position and the fork it creates in a written note rather than a general page. This tracked page sits within our coverage of the corporate practice. On the transactional side, a related tracked change is the disclosure standard in Dutch share purchase agreements. Where the underlying entity sits outside the Netherlands, beneficial ownership disclosure for a Cyprus structure runs through a different register entirely. A board already caught by a late filing under a sponsor's watch faces a related but separate exposure, covered in the annual accounts were filed late on your watch. Where the dispute concerns a structure rather than a single company, a structure report sets out the entities, the control chain and the filings behind them, drawn from primary registers.
Last legal review: 2026-09-15