3.1 Introduction

The focus of the previous Chapter was on the problem of defensive behaviour among company directors. It was suggested that defensive behaviour may be reduced if directors are better informed about the liability standards that the courts apply when reviewing directors’ actions.

The courts may shape directors’ perceptions of liability risks by providing more legal certainty about the factors or standards on which they base their legal decisions. This Chapter will therefore examine how courts make decisions in the complex and unstructured legal domain of directors’ liability. The research results show that, despite the complex legal environment, court decisions are highly consistent. This study is the first to provide a logistic regression model for predicting directors’ liability under Dutch company law based on legal case factors mentioned in court decisions (2003-2013).1

This research was conducted in the period 2013-2015.