Supreme Court Litigation
The Supreme Court of the Netherlands is the highest court of appeal for civil cases. An appeal before the Supreme Court is known as an appeal in cassation. Supreme Court litigation is a specialist field. BarentsKrans is one of the limited number of firms that has traditionally offered an extensive Supreme Court litigation practice. Our Supreme Court attorneys advise lawyers and their clients from around the country on a variety of legal fields.
The involvement of BarentsKrans' litigators has repeatedly resulted in casebook rulings, such as:
- Duplicado and Sobi/Hurks ruling (corporate law);
- KLM/De Kuijer, Blomaard/Gemeente Utrecht (employer's liability);
- Prisma/Slager (competition and antitrust);
- De Boer/TMF, GeSP/Aegon (financial litigation).
In 2005, the Supreme Court Litigation department was involved in the famous dispute between the Scientology Church and (amongst others) internet provider XS4ALL regarding the copyright on Scientology documents. In 2007, the Supreme Court Litigation department successfully acted on behalf of Bank of America in the proceedings with regard to the sale of the LaSalle subsidiary by ABN-AMRO. Recently, BarentsKrans acted on behalf of the Dutch reformed political party in a procedure with the State of the Netherlands about the balancing of interests between the freedom of religion and association, and the fundamental right to vote and to stand for election.
The highest instance
Defendants may appeal to the Supreme Court against decisions by any of the lower courts (a District Court or Court of Appeal). The Supreme Court exclusively deals with questions of law. The Supreme Court verifies the application of legal rules and whether the lower court gave sufficient grounds for its decision. As a rule, the Supreme Court does not decide on matters of fact. This means that Supreme Court litigation is of a different nature to litigation before lower courts.
From the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court
A Supreme Court attorney is usually engaged by the attorneys that acted as counsel to the party in the appeal case. However, litigants may also approach Supreme Court attorneys directly, who will then consider whether there are sufficient grounds for bringing an appeal before the Supreme Court.
Do not wait too long
Supreme Court proceedings are subject to strict deadlines and, furthermore, the notice of appeal in cassation must list all the grounds of the appeal up front. For this reason, it is important that you do not wait too long in seeking advice of Supreme Court litigation after a decision has been given on appeal. Please contact us for further information on this.