Ineke is speaking at the Stiftungsrechtstag organised annually by peer Prof Dominique Jakob, where Switzerland recommends the economic importance of foundations and the legal innovations required to that extent. Precisely because Dutch law has historically had a much broader scope of application than Swiss foundation law, people are also keen to hear about practical innovations in the Netherlands. In recent years, I have been making the case in an international context for the concept of steward ownership, in which large assets are deployed in a responsible stewardship manner, with the ultimate form being institutionalisation in a (shareholding or just stewardship) foundation.
However, regressive voices are now coming from the Netherlands precisely as the government has been marginalising civil society over the past few years. We are now in an illiberal legal development and I will share this with my Swiss colleagues. After all, forewarned is forearmed. Incidentally, that does not make notions of stewardship ownership any less, but perhaps rather, more necessary.
