Barbara Bier

Barbara Bier is professor of corporate law and corporate governance at Nyenrode Business Universiteit. Her specific areas of interest are capital protection rules and the legal aspects of (Corporate) Governance and governance in specific sectors.  

She teaches company law in various courses at Nyenrode. She is actively involved in contract research of Nyenrode i.a. in the field of Corporate Governance, particularly with respect to compliance to the Dutch Corporate Governance Code by shareholders and the voting- and engagement behavior of Dutch and foreign institutional investors. 

In 2013 she participated in the Nyenrode research team that produced the report on ‘Ten Years Corporate Governance in The Netherlands’ and in 2014 in the more general research regarding compliance by listed companies, all commissioned by the Dutch Monitoring Committee Corporate Governance Code.

She has been practicing law for many years, advising national and international (listed) clients on various matters of Dutch company law, such as (financial) restructurings, codes of conduct/ethics, corporate governance, capital protection rules, liability of managing directors and supervisory directors. 

She has studied both Business law and Notarial law at the University of Leiden. She holds a PhD (2003) from the Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam on the topic ‘Distributions to shareholders’.

Other positions
In addition to her work at Nyenrode Business Universiteit, Barbara Bier is of counsel (formerly partner) with Stibbe, an internationally oriented large Dutch law firm. Furthermore, she is a member of the Combined Committee on Company Law, instituted by the Dutch Royal Notarial Association and the Dutch Bar Association to advise on new legislation. Barbara is a member of the Board of the Commercial Law Association (Vereeniging Handelsrecht) and the Board of the Foundation for Scientific Research (Notarial) Corporate Law. 

Barbara Bier is member of various editing boards, both on corporate law and Corporate Governance. She has (co-)published several books and articles on corporate law.

The topic of her inaugural lecture was ‘The value of a shareholder’. Download the inaugural lecture de Inaugurale rede ''De waarde van een aandeelhouder'' as recited by Prof. Barbara Bier on March 28, 2012