Dutch Contract law

As an entrepreneur, you deal with contracts on a daily basis. Drafting contracts and entering into contracts demands meticulous attention to detail. Unfortunately, it often emerges that a contract is incomplete or contains an error; this can have major financial consequences and cause you to break irreparably with a trading partner. When a contract is not fulfilled – or fulfilled defectively (breach of contract)–, or one of the parties changes a contract or has a different interpretation, it can spark off a protracted conflict and expensive proceedings that could have been avoided with proper knowledge of contract law.

A customised contract and/or furnishing security can offer far-reaching protection and protect you from long-running conflicts and costs. Kouwenaar Advocatuur will gladly assist you in drafting a contract. When necessary, we will also assist you in enforcing compliance with a contract. Kouwenaar Advocatuur is a business Dutch law specialist, with ample experience in proceedings pertaining to civil law, proceedings before the Netherlands Enterprise Court, as well as in mediation and arbitration.

General Terms and Conditions

Use is often made of General Terms and Conditions in business (buying and selling). Although people tend to assume that these terms and conditions apply, a party is not bound by them if it subsequently emerges that the terms and conditions were not agreed on properly. Not only should the contents of your general terms and conditions be correct and easily understandable for your customers, they must also be used correctly.
Are your General Terms and Conditions still up to date according to Dutch (European) law? Kouwenaar Advocatuur can provide clear advice on how to adjust them.

Types of contract

In the Netherlands, parties have a lot of freedom in determinig the form nd content of a contract. The law sometimes imposes special requirements that have to be fulfilled, e.g., in relation to employment law.

We will gladly advise you in fields of Dutch contract law concerning:

• General Terms and Conditions, SLAs and framework agreements
• purchase and loan agreements
• contracts for orders/subcontracting and employment contracts
• cooperation and partnership agreements, including professional partnerships
• distribution, franchise or agency agreements
• licensing agreements
• lease agreements
• pre-contractual and contractual liabilities
• non-contractual liability (tort)
• enforcement, termination or interim amendment of contracts
• establishment agreements
• clauses such as disclaimers, penalty clauses, non-disclosures clauses and non-competition clauses