[2] Swets provided overall management and processing of subscriptions to scientific and professional printed and electronic publications for libraries.

[4] The Swets companies were progressively declared bankrupt between September and November 2014.

The ultimate shareholders of Swets Group in close the lenders have decided to put all shares of Royal Swets & Zeitlinger Holding N.V. up for sale and have initiated a competitive auction process with a planned sale in Q3 2014.

[6][7] The market update further stated that as Swets had "failed to meet its covenant requirements related to the long term financing.

The problems were attributed to the move from print to digital publishing, which has lower commissions, and facilitates direct publisher–customer relationships in place of intermediaries.