ARTICLE · 19 OCTOBER 2021

Are Reservations In Dutch Employment Contracts A Good Idea?

Littler Mendelson

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Employers in the Netherlands are sometimes keen to include a reservation when they form an employment contract.

NetherlandsEmployment and HR

Fleur Van Lieshout

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Employers in the Netherlands are sometimes keen to include a reservation when they form an employment contract. A reservation can be formulated as a condition precedent or a resolutive condition. Both types of conditions depend on an uncertain future event.

Resolutive conditions

A resolutive condition in an employment contract is one that ends the contract with immediate effect once the condition is fulfilled.

A resolutive condition does not, in principle, fit within the Dutch 'closed dismissal system' under which the employer needs a reasonable ground to terminate an employment contract. Depending on the reasonable ground, the court or the UWV [Dutch Employee Insurance Agency] reviews whether such a reasonable ground exists. Because a resolutive condition is slightly incompatible with the 'closed dismissal system', it must meet a number of requirements:

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