Supreme Court litigation

The team has won a sterling reputation for taking on matters with a broad societal impact or an impact on business sectors and matters involving a human rights dimension. Because many of the cases we deal with have an EU law dimension, we are also able to boast an enviable track record of ECJ cases, as one of the very few in the Netherlands. Many of the matters that we have dealt with for our clients have become landmark cases. Examples of these are the Yukos case, the Urgenda case and the Pirate Bay case, to name just a few.  

We represent national and international financial institutions, corporates, municipalities and NGOs and handle Supreme Court litigation in all areas of civil law, including Dutch Caribbean matters. We are the undisputed market leader among Dutch business law firms in the field of ESG and climate litigation, and particularly well placed to act in banking and finance litigation, director's liability, insurance litigation, class actions and in cases involving state bodies.

Our Supreme Court team is headed by Freerk Vermeulen, one of the most accomplished Supreme Court lawyers in the Netherlands and trailblazer in climate litigation. He leads a diverse team of creative legal thinkers that is uniquely positioned to bring a fresh perspective to complicated matters.

Our Supreme Court team is part of our Dispute Resolution group, the largest litigation and arbitration practice of all law firms in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Combining our experience and unique capabilities in all tiers of the judicial system and in the international and national arbitration system with our Supreme Court strengths allows us to anticipate and mitigate legal risks.

At all stages of the proceedings, we help shape our clients' litigation strategy to maximise the likelihood of an outcome that meets their commercial and reputational needs. 

We welcome cooperation. We work seamlessly with both lawyers from across our firm, co-counsel at other firms who may have handled the matter in lower courts, and our clients' legal teams. 

Access to justice – up to the highest courts – is a human right, and we consider our pro bono practice key to who we are as a firm. We have secured landmark Supreme Court rulings for pro bono clients. A recent example is the Urgenda climate case, the most important Dutch case on climate related litigation.

• We acted for the Dutch Urgenda Foundation in the landmark Supreme Court appeal dealing with the question whether the Dutch State acted unlawfully in respect of its non-fulfilment of the climate goals to which the Dutch State has committed itself. On 20 December 2019, the Supreme Court sided with our client Urgenda. We inter alia developed the human rights argument on appeal (articles 2, 8 and 13 ECHR) in view of the living instrument doctrine of the European Court of Human Rights.  
• Over the last 22 years, we assisted several internationally renowned banks in landmark cases concerning securities lease agreements, interest rate derivatives and various proceedings concerning price variation terms in consumer mortgages, in addition to various cases concerning secured credit and insolvency including two landmark cases on bank guarantees. We assisted the Dutch Association of Banks in preliminary references the Supreme Court concerning the seizure of documents and the transfer of non-performing loans.
• We successfully acted for former shareholders of Yukos in various proceedings concerning the de facto expropriation of Yukos and human rights infringements by the Russian Federation. Various matters were put before the Supreme Court in various appeals. Most notably, these include the recognition of foreign judgments under common private international law and the "public policy test" including the consequences of human rights infringements in Russia (2019), the recognition of foreign arbitral awards (2010), the territoriality principle in international insolvency law (2013) and the relation between summary proceedings and main proceedings (2009).