“One of the regular returning cases on my desk – among the large influx of (international) transactions – is the dissolution of Lycos. Lycos is a typical example of an Internet enterprise of which the expectations ran high, but that didn't make it in the end. Lycos is a joint-venture of the great German publishing company Bertelsmann and the Spanish telecom giant Telefonica, for which we regularly act. At the time of the Internet-hype, Lycos was worth about 5 billion, now barely 10 million. The share has been reduced to penny stock, but is still listed at the Paris and Frankfurt stock exchanges. One fine day (better yet: one bad day) the losses were accumulating so fast, that the daily loss amounted to six hundred thousand euro! One of the actions was a procedure before the Enterprise division to demand that Lycos stir itself to make an end to this. At least, those losses have been stopped now by an expedited winding-up. The winding-up, however,  isn't as straight forward as it seems, because Lycos is a Dutch company and as such, the Dutch rules apply, but we have to deal with stock exchange regulations in force abroad as well, since the company is listed in Germany and France. At present, we have progressed to the point where most assets have been sold, albeit at a rock-bottom price, and only a CEO and a CFO remain on the payroll of the (still listed) company. This case is of juridical interest not because it is such a feat to take a company private – it isn't –, but because the winding-up is complicated as long as the company is still listed because the stock exchange regulations apply. It could be considered paradoxical that the financial result of this case, aimed at winding-up, seems inversely proportional to the demands made of our knowledge of company law,  stock exchange regulations and negotiations, and all of that in an international context.”