Access to justice may improve, but deadlines, authority and evidence still decide a company’s room to act.
A founder is waiting for a municipal decision before opening a second location. The contractor has reserved time, equipment has been ordered and the landlord expects rent. The municipality acknowledged the application, but the expected decision date has passed. Inside the company, nobody knows who last contacted the authority or what was promised.
This is where the rule of law enters ordinary business life. On 15 September, the Council for the Judiciary welcomed government plans to invest in lower court fees and social legal aid. The government has reserved a structural €45 million for both measures. The division of that funding and the implementation timetable will follow.
The announcement concerns the practical cost of enforcing rights. For the company, the immediate work remains clear decisions, reliable records and named responsibility.
The price of getting an answer
For a company challenging a non-tax government decision in 2026, the administrative court fee is generally €397. That may be modest beside a delayed investment, yet it remains a procedural threshold. When the fee is not paid on time, the court may leave the substance of the case aside.
Commercial disputes can carry heavier entry costs. In civil appeals, 2026 court fees for non-natural persons range from €851 to €14,007, depending on the claim’s value. A VOF, maatschap and commanditaire vennootschap fall within that same tariff category.
Those figures are only the visible part. The company also carries adviser costs, management time and delayed cash. A disputed receivable stops working as working capital, while wages, VAT, suppliers and rent continue to arrive on schedule.
The €45 million commitment is an important policy signal. Current tariffs and deadlines still shape the immediate position. Lower fees will not restore a missing approval, an uncertain contract version or a permit application whose receipt was never saved.
A dispute starts before the disagreement
The founder waiting for the municipality may believe the problem began when the decision became late. In governance terms, it began earlier. Nobody had been assigned to monitor the application, record contact with the authority and place the relevant dates beside the investment plan.
The same pattern appears in commercial work. A construction client changes the scope during a site meeting. A supplier accepts a delivery adjustment by telephone. A customer contact orders extra work, though nobody checks whether that person can approve the price. Trade continues because the relationship feels sound.
Months later, memory divides. The founder recalls consent. The customer recalls a discussion. The employee who held the correspondence has left. Evidence sits across personal inboxes, messaging apps and an accounting system that shows the invoice but not the authority behind it.
The governance problem is then larger than document storage. Management cannot quickly establish what was agreed, who could agree it, which version applied or when the other party objected. That uncertainty weakens a negotiation before any court becomes involved.
Dutch courts received almost 1.47 million new cases in 2025 and disposed of 1.45 million. At district-court level, 66 percent of incoming matters were kanton cases. Justice is not an exceptional stage reserved for dramatic corporate failures. Much of it concerns ordinary obligations that stopped being ordinary.
Deadlines need an owner
The Council for the Judiciary recently argued against suspending the penalty payment mechanism for late WIA decisions. The proposal concerned WIA decisions, yet it carries a wider governance lesson. A delayed public decision can have direct commercial value.
When a location, subsidy, registration or operating plan depends on a public decision, the deadline belongs in the cash forecast. So do the proof of submission and the dates on which the authority requested, received and acknowledged further information. Delay can hold an investment still.
Responsibility needs a name. Someone should know the controlling document, the next deadline, the financial exposure and the decision management must make. Being copied into emails is not ownership. Nor is assuming that an adviser will notice every operational consequence.
Digital court routes expanded in specific procedures during 2026. These included certain kanton matters and civil appeal proceedings. Digital access raises the value of records that are dated, attributable and easy to retrieve. A clear record can be shared and assessed quickly. An unexplained screenshot or unsigned attachment leaves the central question unresolved.
The useful discipline is modest. Take one current dispute, delayed payment or public application. Consider whether the company can retrieve the agreement, authority, correspondence, delivery or submission evidence, payment history and deadlines within an hour. When it cannot, the repair belongs in management time now, before positions harden.
Access is not the same as readiness
Lower court fees and stronger social legal aid would widen practical access to the legal system as the budget moves through the political process.
For a small company, access is only half the equation. The other half is readiness. Can the founder understand the position before deciding whether to negotiate, object, pay, claim or seek advice? Can another person reconstruct the decision when the usual employee is absent? Can the business connect the legal issue to cash and operations?
Our founder may receive the municipal decision without going near a courtroom. That would be welcome. The company still needs to know when the application became complete, what the authority received and how long the investment can remain paused.
Good governance does not turn every disagreement into litigation. It preserves enough clarity to avoid unnecessary litigation and enough evidence to act when avoidance is no longer possible. Cheaper justice may widen the door. A company must still arrive with its dates, decisions and responsibilities in order.
If you want to test whether your company’s deadlines, authority and evidence are ready for a dispute, contact us for a focused governance review.
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Paolo Maria Pavan. AI was not used to identify sources, build the factual basis, or produce the analytical judgment contained here. AI was used only as a drafting aid. The final English text was personally reviewed, edited, and approved by Paolo Maria Pavan before publication.
References
- Investeringen in rechtsstaat: een goed begin | Rechtspraak
- Rijksoverheid - Government funding commitment for court access and legal aid
- Rechtspraak - Existing cost of challenging government decisions
- Rechtspraak - Civil dispute economics for companies
- Raad voor de rechtspraak - Dwangsom as pressure on delayed public decisions
- Rechtspraak - Scale and timing of the court system
- Rechtspraak - Digital procedure and the quality of the case file
- Rijksoverheid - Earlier legal-aid funding trajectory
