Disputes on the interpretation of agreements are a regular occurrence. See my previous contributions (1, 2) on this topic. In a recent ruling by the Supreme Court, another interpretation issue was the focus of attention. In brief, in this case the Court had to determine how a letter between business ... Read More »

A French party has been distributing Italian foodstuffs in France for an Italian supplier for more than 25 years. The parties never documented their agreements in a (written) distributor agreement, nor did they ever agree on exclusivity (agreement that the distributor may exclusively sell the supplier’s products in a specific ... Read More »

Ever since the Siemens and Holst Italia judgements it has been a procurement law certainty that tenderers can rely on third parties for eligibility requirements for example. And although after the high-profile ruling of the Court in Interlocutory Proceedings in Arnhem in 2009, we thought that the doctrine was fully ... Read More »

The award criteria determine to which tenderer the contract will be awarded in a particular tendering procedure. Price is often an important sub-criterion for award in practice, but award based on the lowest price is not permitted in principle. What is actually the situation with award based on best price-quality ... Read More »

The Netherlands has two types of capital companies: the NV (public limited company) and the BV (private limited company). One major difference between the two company forms has to with the shares. The introduction of the flex BV (Flex Private Limited Company) has diminished the differences in this area. The ... Read More »

Title 3 of book 3 of the Dutch Civil Code (‘BW’) contains provisions relating to the power of attorney. Article 3:69 BW determines that when someone has acted as the unauthorised representative of another, the latter can ratify this legal act, which means that the same result is realised as ... Read More »

On 8 December 2016, the Corporate Governance Code Monitoring Committee (the ‘Committee’), published the revised Corporate Governance Code (the ‘Code’). The most important changes relate to the focus on long-term value creation and the introduction of culture as an element of good corporate governance. The Code has also been simplified ... Read More »

In his contribution to our knowledge pages, my colleague Sjaak van de Heul previously informed us that the ACM (Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets) had fined [ii] investment funds (investment firms or private equity) for breaches of the cartel prohibition by companies (flour producers) that were (indirectly) held by ... Read More »

A next important step towards creating the Netherlands Commercial Court has been taken: on 16 December 2016, the Netherlands Commercial Court legislative proposal (with accompanying explanatory memorandum) was published as a consultation document. The term to respond, 1 February 2017, has now expired. It looks like we are progressing towards ... Read More »