General meetings may soon be fully digital again

BVs, NVs, associations, cooperatives, mutual associations and VVEs (home owners associations) and certain European legal entities, will soon be allowed to hold fully digital meetings with their shareholders or members again. During the corona pandemic this was temporarily allowed. Since this was generally considered positive, a bill was recently introduced to allow this again, and this time permanently. The expected effective date of the new regulation is Jan. 1, 2025.

A number of rules do apply. For example, for BVs, NVs, cooperatives and mutual societies, the articles of association must stipulate that digital meetings are allowed. For associations, the general meeting must have authorized the board to convene digital meetings. Shareholders and members must also be able to participate in and vote at the meeting via video and audio. Typically, the usual video calling applications will be adequate for this purpose.

After the new regulation takes effect, there will therefore be three options for holding general meetings: fully physical, fully digital and partly physical and partly digital (hybrid). You can therefore decide which method best suits your organization. Holding digital meetings does require an amendment to the articles of association in some cases.

Want to know more? Please reach out to your regular contact at N/P or to Irene Steltenpool at irene.steltenpool@np.nl or +31 6 5244 2681.