NETHERLANDS Law and Practice Contributed by: Sebastiaan Bennink, Daniel Webb, Charlotte Loomans and Siqi Zhao, Bennink Dunin-Wasowicz
• technical assistance, brokering services or financ - ing or financial assistance related to prohibited exports of goods; • technical testing and analysis services; • reloading services to certain ships; • services related to liquefied natural gas projects; • investment services; • banking services; • specialised financial messaging services; • credit rating services; • accounting, auditing, bookkeeping, tax consulting, business and management consulting or public relations services; • construction, architectural, urban planning and engineering services; • legal advisory services; • IT consultancy services; • market research and public opinion polling ser - vices; • advertising services; • commercial space-based services; • artificial intelligence services; • high-performance computing services; and • crypto-asset services. 5.2 Goods Certain EU sanctions regimes include multiple import and export bans on the following goods to or from other countries: • arms and military goods; • dual-use items and advanced goods and technolo - gies; • oil and gas goods, technologies and certain related software; • aviation and space goods and technologies; • iron and steel products; • luxury goods, gold, diamonds and jewellery; • goods that generate significant revenues for Rus - sia; • goods that could contribute in particular to the enhancement of Russian industrial capacities; • crude oil or petroleum products; • liquified natural gas; • additional industrial and revenue-generating goods, including certain electronic components, hydrocar - bons, metals, salts, rubber articles and construc - tion materials; and
• cultural property goods.
6. Civil Litigation and Arbitration 6.1 Force Majeure Certain EU sanctions regulations contain provisions that prohibit certain parties from making a claim where the performance of a contract has been affect - ed, directly or indirectly, by the sanctions measures imposed in that regulation; examples include Article 11 of Regulation 833/2014 and Regulation 269/2014, as well as Article 8d of Regulation 765/2006 and Arti - cle 10 of Regulation 2022/263. Where these provi - sions apply, there is naturally no need to consider the application of force majeure, as a claim would be struck out on the basis of these provisions. More generally on force majeure, there is no specific Dutch law provision focusing on the legal effect of sanctions on the performance of contractual obliga - tions. In general civil law, Article 6:75 of the Dutch Civil Code states that a party is not liable for a breach of contract if they are not at fault, personally or by virtue of the law. If sanctions make it impossible to perform the con - tract, force majeure could theoretically be invoked under Dutch law. In practice, however, the courts are not typically willing to accept its invocation: judg - ments show that there is a high threshold for the invo - cation of force majeure if it is still somehow possible to fulfil obligations under the contract, and the courts appear unwilling to make the creditor share in the risk that was in the sphere of the debtor. For example, the courts have not accepted the argument that a failure to receive money from Libya due to EU sanc - tions constitutes force majeure in relation to a busi - ness lease where that money was needed to pay the rent; neither did the courts allow an entity that found itself unable to supply a specific product to an Iranian entity due to US sanctions to invoke force majeure, as they argued that products could instead be procured from a different country that fell outside the scope of US sanctions. Nevertheless, in one proceeding, the Amsterdam District Court did accept the invocation of the parties’ contractual force majeure clause where
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