Dam's Law: Your legal questions answered

Questioner

Dear all, As a hosting party, we still get a lot of questions about the Dam Law. In order not to blindly rely on the many different articles online, I wanted to ask two questions: 1) Self-employed persons and small businesses, do they fall under the Dam Act or not? One site says they do, another says that small businesses may be seen as private individuals through 'flexible working'. 2) Existing contracts. Suppose a (private) customer entered into a 5-year contract with us for a domain name in 2007. This year it would be extended for another 5 years. Does the Dam Act apply at that time? 3) In the example of point 2: is it possible that Dam's Law can also be applied to existing contracts? I had understood that this might also happen. Thank you in advance for your efforts and if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them!

Lawyer

The Dam law has led to an amendment of the civil code and is therefore not a separate law. The most important amendments have been made to the articles of law that relate to the general terms and conditions. 1. The law states the following about this: In an agreement between a user and a counterparty, a natural person, who does not act in the exercise of a profession or business, a clause in the general terms and conditions is presumed to be unreasonably onerous. So according to the law, self-employed persons and companies are excluded. The reflex effect means that the provisions for consumers sometimes also apply to small companies. The condition is that the transaction for which the company has been approached falls outside the framework of its professional activities. 2. The law applies in any case to contracts that are extended this year 3 There is the first ruling known to me by the subdistrict court judge in Haarlem who states in his verdict that changes to the law already apply and that your 5-year contract can therefore now be terminated with a notice period of 1 month.

Lawyer

In addition to Mr Martens, I can report that the law will also apply to current contracts from 1 December this year (2012). So between 1-12-2011 and 1-12-2012 only for newly concluded contracts, after that for all (private) contracts. So you have until 1 December to adjust your general terms and conditions of delivery.