On 11 December 2018, the Senate of Dutch parliament has adopted a bill that will establish the Netherlands Commercial Court (NCC) in Amsterdam. The NCC will allow SME’s and large enterprises to conduct commercial litigation in the Netherlands fully in the English language. Thus, the NCC should become a viable alternative for -more expense- proceedings abroad and arbitration.

Netherlands Commercial Court in Amsterdam

The Netherlands Commercial Court will be a part of the Amsterdam court system with a District Court and a Court of Appeal. The NCC will also allow for summary proceedings. The proceedings in the Netherlands will be fully conducted in the English language and the judgement will also be in English. The court will have Dutch judges with special language training.

The specialised Dutch international court will have its own set of civil procedure rules, that aim to reflect international best practices of for instance IBA rules and regular rules of Dutch civil procedure.

Dutch Attorneys can instigate proceedings at the Netherlands Commercial Court in Amsterdam. The NCC will allow for electronic submission of documents through eNCC, the web portal of the NCC. The NCC will also allow for hearings by means of conference calls and video conference. The judgments of the NCC can be readily enforced within the European Union and generally also elsewhere.

Interestingly, the NCC in Amsterdam will most likely become a competitor of the Brussels International Business Court (BIBC) that is to be set up in 2020.

Launch of the Netherlands Commercial Court

Penrose Attorneys is looking forward to this advancement of the Dutch legal system and we surely anticipate assisting various clients with proceedings for the Netherlands Commercial Court in Amsterdam.

UPDATE 1: The NCC has been launched on 1 January 2019. Please see this link to our blog about the court fees of the Netherlands Commercial Court.

UPDATE 2: On 29 April 2020, the NCC has published an interesting ruling that also addresses the effects of the Corona crisis on international business that involves the Netherlands. We have discussed this ruling in our blog (in Dutch) of the same date. The ruling in English can be found here.