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Comment by dutchmartin | Hacker News Reader

Just common sense laws about who pays the legal fees in cases where it is a small entity against the Goliath. Here in the Nederlands, the loser of the lawsuit pays for the legal fees of the winner. This makes sure that someone who files lawsuits that are doomed at the start will think twice about that because it will cost them a lot of money.

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That's how it works in theory. I'm going on a limb here and will assume that you've never fielded or defended a lawsuit in NL. I have. Several. Yes, in theory the loser pays. But in practice the loser will rarely be ordered to pay all of your costs. The court will make some highly theoretical computation about what your lawyers have cost you, which will be a very small fraction of what they really cost you.

This theoretical amount you can then retrieve from the loser. You'll still be out the bulk of your legal fees.

> Here in the Nederlands, the loser of the lawsuit pays for the legal fees of the winner.

In all cases I've seen first hand (in the Netherlands) the judge ordered all parties to pay their own costs. Loser pays is not a default because you almost never "win a 100%". You win for something like 70% (or maybe 90% if your lucky). So unless the case was really frivolous you will still have to pay for it yourself.

I personally know 2 people who sued the Dutch state (a somewhat similarly Goliath) and won. Both still needed to pay their own legal fees and such. It is possible to start a new case to get your legal fees from the opposing side. However if you have just concluded 5 years of court against a Goliath-style adversary your probably not really motivated for "a second round".

Also having to pay afterwards is no deterrent for a party like Apple who has unlimited money. You will have to pay lawyers and such up front for a case that can potentially drag on for years and years.

That’s not really how it works in the Netherlands, I’m afraid. Yes, the losing party usually has to pay the legal fees, but these fees are determined using a point-based system and do not really reflect the actual costs.

But, I do have to say, IP-related cases are an exception, and more is covered there (still not necessarily the actual costs). But that is not specific to the Netherlands but mandated by an EU directive (2004/48/EG).

It could work the other way too? Where the small company loses they must now pay the fees of the larger company. Nobody can afford to defend themselves against the large company because they might have to pay the large companies fees

I don’t know how the Dutch handle it, but it’s likely similar to germany: The lawyer and court fees are set by the “value” of the lawsuit (Streitwert) which in this case would be the alleged damages. The court can set that value. There’s tables to derive the fees. Now, each party can voluntarily choose to pay more to their legal team, but the fee that the loosing party needs to pay is limited to the court mandated fees.

Do you spell it the "Nederlands" or was that a typo?

In the Netherlands you spell it Nederland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands so it may well be a native speaker mixing up the spellings.

since in dutch you call the country Nederland it's not a big mistake to call it The Nederlands

I didn't say it was a mistake. Why does everyone read everything I write in bad faith!?

> or was that a typo?

Typos are mistakes.

Thanks Webster

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