Blogs

This week, the Dutch Senate approved a bill introducing a statutory presumption of employment for workers earning a low hourly rate. What does this presumption entail, and what does it mean for organisations engaging self-employed workers?

Op 19 May 2026, the European Commission (EC) published its draft guidelines on the classification of high-risk AI systems. The good news is that the guidelines provide greater clarity. The bad news is that this may result in more AI systems falling within this category. Below, we outline the key points of the guidelines.

Good news for employers dealing with employees on long-term sick leave: the proposed restriction of the compensation scheme for transition payments to small employers has been postponed. The intended effective date has been moved from 1 July 2026 to 1 January 2027. This means employers can continue to make use of the current compensation scheme for the time being.

Earlier, I wrote a blog about the legislative proposal to amend the Dutch Public Procurement Act. In the meantime, the so-called “Scientific Review” (Wetenschapstoets) of that proposal has been published. This review forms part of the legislative process. The academics’ conclusion is devastating: the proposal does not provide any genuine strengthening of legal protection.

The standard Nederlandse Vereniging van Makelaars (NVM) residential purchase agreement provides that if one of the parties fails to comply with its obligations under the agreement, the other party may terminate (rescind) the contract. The defaulting party must first be given formal notice of default. Upon termination of the agreement, the defaulting party will generally forfeit a penalty of 10% of the purchase price.

This is a question we increasingly receive from clients. The trigger is usually current geopolitical developments and the related media coverage. We are by now all familiar with the (legal) boundaries of the European Economic Area (EEA) under the GDPR, but the issue of digital sovereignty goes further than that. It is explicitly about (undesirable) dependencies on technology and suppliers in general. What does this mean for you as an organisation? And what can you do about it in practice? In this blog, we explain further.

On 20 April 2026, the State Secretary for Digital Economy and Sovereignty published the draft bill for the Implementation Act for the Artificial Intelligence Regulation for public consultation. With this legislative proposal, the Netherlands implements the AI Regulation. The proposal designates which supervisory authorities will be responsible for enforcing the AI Regulation and sets out how supervision will be carried out. In total, ten supervisory authorities will be appointed.

The Data Act (Regulation (EU) 2023/2854) has been applicable since 12 September 2025 and aims to make the European data economy fairer and more competitive. However, the European Commission now intends to amend the Data Act once again.

Last month, we successfully represented a contracting authority in summary proceedings before the District Court of The Hague. The central question was whether a delivered machine complied with the knock-out requirements set out in the tender. However, beneath this lay a more fundamental legal question: how does the court interpret technical requirements?