Corporate Opportunity

The corporate opportunity doctrine (or in short: corporate opportunity) refers to the event where a director of a company seizes a business opportunity for personal gain rather than to exploit the opportunity for the benefit of the company.

Although this doctrine originally stems from Anglo-Saxon law, it is introduced in recent years in the Netherlands as well. According to Dutch case law a director acts unlawful if he seizes a corporate opportunity for his personal gain unless the opportunity was “released” by the company after consultation.