Doing Business in the Netherlands 2012 - American Chamber of ...

Doing Business in the Netherlands 2012
Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (no.
44/2001).
This Council Regulation has replaced the Brussels Convention. With
regard to Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, the (new) Lugano
Convention applies.
Prior to enforcement of a judgment handed down by a court in one of
the states referred to above, the leave to do so must be obtained from
the district court. The procedure to obtain leave generally takes no
more than a number of weeks from filing the request. Similarly,
Dutch judgments are easy to enforce in such states.
Judgments passed by courts in states with which the Netherlands has
no enforcement convention cannot be recognized and/or enforced in
the Netherlands. In order to obtain an enforceable title in the
Netherlands, such cases must be retried by the Dutch courts.
However, during such proceedings, the court may decide that the
foreign judgment does meet the requirements for recognition of that
judgment in the Netherlands as generally accepted in municipal law.
In that case, the matter will not be assessed on the merits; the Dutch
court will simply decide in accordance with the decision rendered in
the foreign judgment.
The assessment of a case submitted to the Dutch court with a foreign
judgment in place is usually done on a sliding scale: the more the
foreign judgment is in line with the requirements for recognition, the
less the court’s assessment of the case on its merits will be.
24.6 European Enforcement Order for Uncontested
Claims
The European Parliament and Council Regulation of 21 April 2004
creating a European Enforcement Order for uncontested claims (no.
805/2004) lays down minimum procedural standards to ensure that
judgments, court settlements and authentic instruments on uncontested
claims can be enforced easily in the EU Member States. The
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