Success Stories

My client is a German car rental company. On a cold December night there had been a collision of four motor vehicles on the A1. Among these motor vehicles there was one which was rented out by the client to a Russian, although it was steered by a Dutchman. The first car suddenly had to brake

Knock and run has been around for centuries. Even you have probably done it in the past. Of course, it was not always fun for the victim, but it doesn’t really harm anyone. A couple of years ago, a client of mine discovered that there are also less innocent forms of knock and run. His

Our client is a wife which wants to divorce her husband. During the marriage the client has worked for the company of her husband, but has mainly taken care of their small children. When parties get a divorce, the question is whether the husband has to pay the wife children- and partner

Instant dismissal has far-reaching consequences for the employee. With this his employment contract is being terminated immediately. Not only is the employee deprived of his salary, but in principle he also can’t claim an unemployment benefit (because he is culpable unemployed). The

In an interesting and technical case, a big manufacturer/importer of sawing machines required my legal expertise. Fine An inspector of the Dutch Food- and Consumer Product Safety Authority (DFCPSA) fined the manufacturer, because a saw allegedly did not meet up to the applicable

A disabled client had bought a second hand delivery van from another individual. She especially bought this van, because it could easily transport her wheelchair. At the time of the conclusion of the agreement the MOT had almost expired. Since the client did not know anything about technical

A businessman for whom I had worked previously came to me because he wanted to help a friend who was having difficulties with his business partner. He tried to intervene when the partner attempted to eject his friend out of his own company. He even offered to buy the company. The other

A man telephoned me in a panic because his house had just burned down and an insurance expert was on his doorstep asking him all kinds of strange questions. The expert then produced a report suggesting on various grounds, both comprehensible and incomprehensible, that the man had set fire

An American group with a number of Dutch subsidiaries wished to sell shares back to a fellow shareholder. As the approval of the American parent company was required, I drafted the share purchase agreement in English, to save time and aid efficient communication. The buyer wished to pay

A client with two companies in two different cities realised that one of the two locations was not doing well; the economic situation had caused a drop in sales. His business operated in a sub-sector of the construction industry. He had found a buyer for some of his activities and was keen

A German client was faced with a customer who failed to pay. First the customer avoided my client, then he invented excuses and finally he admitted that he owed money but said that he was unable to settle the debt in a single payment. He wanted to arrange to pay in instalments. What should

My Belgian client owns a property in the Netherlands, which she rented to a third party. When she came to me, the tenancy agreement had already terminated but the tenant had not yet paid the rent in full. At this point, the rent payments were 14 months in arrears. The tenant considered

My client is an international lorry driver with German nationality. Whilst carrying out his duties he was involved in an accident at work. The accident took place in the Netherlands, so Dutch law applies. My client was transporting grain and whilst unloading he got caught between the bars

My client had been employed by a bronze foundry for over forty years. Due to the recession, his employer reluctantly applied to the Dutch Administrative Office for Employed Persons’ Insurance Schemes (Uitvoeringsinstelling werknemersverzekeringen or UWV) for a permit to dismiss my

One of my clients had a showroom selling bathrooms and related goods. A fire broke out in the showroom and it was destroyed completely. As my client was insured against fire, he made a claim on his insurance. The insurer was only prepared to pay the current market value of the stock rather

One of my clients was the proud owner of an American classic car. She took the vehicle for an occasional drive, either alone or with other members of a classic car club. As she only took the car on occasional outings and rarely found the time to do so, it was hardly ever used. Knowing

My client, who specialised in the import of local beer originating from his native country in Central America, had entered into a joint venture with a Dutch man in order to finance his business. The parties had set up a general partnership as the basis for their joint venture, though they did

Some years ago a German couple came to me for assistance. While holidaying in the Netherlands, a Dutch man had driven into their car. Luckily they were unhurt. However, the costs of repairing their car (removing the dents and partial re-spraying) were significant. Immediately after the

A man sought our firm’s assistance after his house burned down. His insurer refused to pay out for the loss, claiming that the man had set his house on fire in order to collect the insurance money. The insurer based this on a report prepared by an expert that it had appointed. The

Our client entered into a cooperation agreement with a Dutch company. The key activity covered by the cooperation was the manufacture of car parts. Our client manufactures these parts using a machine supplied by the Dutch company. There was an error in the design of one of the machines

Our client wished to divorce her husband. During the marriage, our client worked in her husband’s company but her main occupation was taking care of their young children. The issue in the divorce was whether the husband had to pay the wife a maintenance allowance for herself and for

The landlord of a large number of properties in a particular local authority area in the Netherlands came to us for assistance. Some time previously, a foundation had approached him asking to rent a property. The foundation was entirely dependent on a subsidy from the local authority. Our

A former employee falsely accused our client of mismanagement and bullying him into leaving. He requested rescission of his own employment contract and applied to court for an extremely high termination settlement to be awarded because he had been bullied into leaving. In the writ he

A company director and sole shareholder came to us for advice. He had been unsuccessful in making a claim under his occupational disability insurance. The policy terms for the insurance had been revised on several occasions over the years. As a result it appeared that the insurance no longer

The owner of a jewellery shop came to us saying that for the last six months he had been having a dispute with one of his employees as he wished to terminate her employment contract due to repeated sickness absences. It turned out that the employee had been off sick for almost a year as a

Several years ago I represented a woman from Limburg. An extension to her home had started to subside and break away from the rest of the house. The much older house had been extended by the previous owners more than 25 years earlier. The extension included the toilet for the property. My

When a foundation doing community work became insolvent, a really nice guy (our client) decided to continue the foundation’s activities through a limited company and purchased the foundation’s fittings and equipment etc. from the liquidator. The community benefited enormously, but

A business partner who frequently takes all the money out of the bank account and transfers it to his own company, refuses to discuss anything and fails to pay tax assessments. These are just some of the problems that my client came to me to seek help with. The partner claimed that he

Breweries often finance fittings and drink dispensing systems for bars that serve their beer, with the intention of recovering the investment gradually over a number of years. Sometimes though, if the bar owner decides to sell or the business doesn’t do well, the brewery can be left

Someone I had encountered earlier in my legal career came to me because of disagreements with his business partner. They had an online shop that was doing very good business, but they no longer trusted one another. From the accuracy of the sales figures to the choice of suppliers, each

My client worked as a warehouse manager at an electrical goods store. One of his regular duties as warehouse manager was to tidy up scrap materials. This involved sorting reusable cable from waste cable (generally copper cable). He regularly took waste cable home. The employer was aware of

My client had agreed to the rescission of his employment contract without putting forward any defence. The reason he agreed to his dismissal related to mental health problems he was suffering from. His doctors were of the opinion that leaving his employer would be beneficial to his

My client, a private company, took on an employee on 1 September 2010 in the role of senior account manager. From January 2011, the employee was regularly absent due to his own health and his girlfriend’s health. In January 2012 he was absent without notice on several occasions.

My client was a 49-year-old man who originally worked for DAF as a final inspection mechanic. As a result of back problems he became incapable of working on 27 February 2007. From 24 February 2009 he was categorised as 35-80% incapacitated. With effect from 24 July 2011 his incapacity

Some time ago, I used a bankruptcy application to collect a debt owing to a client by a lawyer who is a member of a well-known family of attorneys. A court judgment had been issued granting the debt claim and no appeal was made, establishing that the debt claimed was due. One of the supporting

Buying a house is a bit more complicated than buying a loaf of bread. Some clients whom a colleague and I represented discovered this at first hand. Our clients had found the house of their dreams. As they had started their business less than three years earlier, the banks wouldn’t

If you don’t have enough money to fund your business yourself, there are various ways to obtain the necessary capital. One of these is to set up a limited partnership. This is a partnership with one or more general partners, who are actively involved in running the business, and one or

A Dutch company I represented had provided services to a German customer. The invoice that was sent to the customer for this work was not paid. As my client’s standard terms and conditions stated that the services were carried out in the Netherlands, under European legislation we were

My client was dissatisfied with the performance of one of her employees. A programme of coaching failed to bring about the desired improvement, so she believed that there was no solution but to terminate his employment contract. When my client discussed the situation with the employee, he

My client owned a house together with his wife who was terminally ill. They could not pay the mortgage anymore. One day, my client walked past an estate agent's office. The estate agent accompanied my client to his house, viewed it in five minutes and made an offer, which my client was to

A communication agency in the Eindhoven area built a complicated website for an antique furniture dealer. Because the dealer refused to cooperate in providing certain data the website could not be completed. On the basis of the recorded order agreements, the communication agency decided to