Towards the detection of planets around brown dwarfs

I summarize some pioneering efforts for the detection of companions around brown dwarfs. Brown-dwarf binaries appear to be frequent and they prefer smaller orbital separations than stellar binaries. I discuss several scenarios of brown-dwarf formation and speculate about the implications for the presence of planets around brown dwarfs. I argue that the best place to detect a planet could be around a very-low-mass star or brown dwarf. I present estimates of the discovery space for planets around a very-low-mass star using instrumentation planned for the near future on the ground and in space.