About Karel

Karel is a partner at Spigthoff Attorneys at Law & Tax Advisers and President of the Curacao Bar Association. He graduated from the VU University (Amsterdam) in 1989 in both civil law and notarial law. He is an attorney as from 1989. Specialties are a.o. corporate law, banking & securities law and e-commerce. Karel is an experienced litigator: what he advises as a business lawyer, he is prepared to defend in court. Also, as a lobbyist he is trying to help, for instance, foreign companies, financial institutions and trade associations. Karel is a member of the Board of Directors of the Curacao Chamber of Commerce.

Karel has been a member of the Netherlands Antilles Supervisory Board for Fiduciary Business in 2002 and 2003, at the time the Netherlands Antilles supervisor of trust offices (a.k.a. management services companies; ‘trustkantoren‘). For well over 10 years now, ever since 1997, he has been acting for and advising trust offices on several legal matters such as regulatory issues, internal (corporate) structures, contractual relationships with clients (including indemnities), compliance issues, (third party) claims and alike.

Karel is a frequent commentator on corporate and securities case law developments and (co-)author of numerous books and articles on various aspects of Dutch and Netherlands Antilles law, and he has also served as a lecturer at the University of the Netherlands Antilles on Conflict of Laws (international private law). Karel is the author of the leading legal text book on Netherlands Antilles and Aruba corporate law (2nd edition 2006; 340 pages). Publications (in Dutch).

Karel launched his blog on 1 June 2005. However, Walter Olson was the first legal blogger ever. He launched his blog, Overlawyered, on 1 July 1999 (click here for an overview of the first bloggers).

Memberships: Dutch Bar Association; Curacao Bar Association; International Bar Association; Dutch Securities Association; fellow of the Business & Law Research Centre, Radboud University of Nijmegen; Allen & Overy alumni community.

Karel is admitted to both the Amsterdam Bar (the Netherlands) and the Netherlands Antilles Bar. He has been interviewed about his move to Curacao in 1997 by Advocatie.nl (in Dutch).

E-mail: Karel.Frielink@Spigthoff.com