lvh-advocaten

In the case between the Works Council and the receiver of the chain of chemist's shops DA, the Netherlands Supreme Court issued a judgement on 2 June 2017, in which in summary it ruled that the right to prior consultation of the Works Council, as incorporated in Article 25 of the Works Council Act (WOR) in principle also applies to the event in which a company has been declared bankrupt.

On 23 May 2017, the The Hague Court of Appeal gave a judgment in respect of a bank's duty of care regarding an ex-franchisee. In short, the Court of Appeal is of the opinion that it was not established that the bank neglected its duty of care by not warning the franchisee about the poor financial position of the franchiser.

I have written about the Netherlands Franchise Code (NFC) before and explained its contents. In that context, I noted briefly that Minister Kamp sent a white paper for the Franchise Act to the Dutch House of Representatives. The white paper concerns special regulations for a franchise agreement and is open for consultation up to 25 May 2017, inviting stakeholders and interested parties to express their opinion.

On 12 April 2017, the outgoing Minister of Economic Affairs published a bill which legally embeds the NFC. It is possible to respond to the bill until 25 May 2017. By legally embedding the NFC, the Minister wants to strengthen the position of franchisees and bring more balance to the interests of franchisees and franchisors.

A franchisee has successfully brought interlocutory proceedings against his franchisor Bruna. The court in interlocutory proceedings has judged as a preliminary measure that Bruna has to honour the franchise and (sub)lease agreement it terminated.