A Royal Decree of 25 April 1947 entrusted the internationally well known Professor E.M. Meijers with the task of drafting a new civil code.2 Meijers started by submitting some 50 questions to the Dutch Parliament, 18 of which went right to the heart of the issue of how to deal with unjust enrichment:
‘Should a general provision be incorporated to the effect that a person who without sufficient legal ground is enriched at the expense of another must compensate the other for his loss to the maximum of his enrichment, or should the code be limited to the enumeration of a number of specific instances in which this action can be brought?’