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17 Maastricht J. Eur. & Comp. L. 162 (2010)
Taking Back What's Ours - Possibilities and Impossibilities of Recapturing Bonuses

handle is hein.journals/maastje17 and id is 164 raw text is: TAKING BACK WHAT'S OURS? POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES OF RECAPTURING BONUSES NICOLA GUNDT* ABSTRACT This article deals with the possibilities that Dutch and French civil law and labour law offer to bring about changes in employment contracts, more particularly, the possibilities to change bonus clauses. Both countries use rather different concepts. Where the Dutch law uses general principles and relies on the judge's appreciation of the facts, the French law opts for strictly objective reasonings with virtually no role for the judge other than objectively applying the concepts. However, in a concrete case, the outcome may not differ as much as one might expect on first sight. Keywords: Labour Law; Employment contracts; Adaptation of contracts to change of circumstances §1. INTRODUCTION Since about two years ago, the financial and economic crisis is part of our daily life. As a consequence of bad risk management and speculation with non-existing values, banks all over the world have gone bankrupt. Others are in dire straits and have become extremely cautious with credits and lending. In order to restore the flow of money and to keep the economy running, national and regional authorities support some of them with billions of Dollars or Euros. However, while the authorities try to save the banks with public funds, the latter pay their leading managers and directors substantial bonuses.' This behaviour, not unexpectedly, triggered an enormous wave Dr. Nicola Gundt, Lecturer Labour Law, Maastricht University. See for example the newspaper headings on Friday, July 31st; 'Hoge bonussen voor bankiers VS ondanks staatssteun', electronically available at <www.nrc.nl/economie/article2315800.ece/Hoge-bonussen_ voor bankiersVS_ondanks_staatssteun> (last visited 16.06.2010). 17 MJ 2 (2010) 162

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