Somen died just two weeks ago, not long after being diagnosed with an unexpected and devastating condition. His health had not been good in recent years, but this illness and his rapid demise came as complete shock. He was only 71. Somen started his career as a lawyer in South Africa. After a number of years, he was bitten by… Read more
Many Dutch belastingadviseurs and other legal professionals already seem to know that fiscaal means “tax”. One cannot help but wonder, therefore, why so many keep using “fiscal” in the sense of “tax” when they know it is wrong. There are a number of poor translations of Dutch legal terms that seem…firmly rooted. I’ve dubbed this the “Persistence of Poor Translation… Read more
In this post, we look at how verdedigbaar can be properly expressed in English, especially in the phrase “het is verdedigbaar dat“. When a lawyer discusses a possible position or argument, one problem that arises is that, merely by stating it, the lawyer appears to be agreeing with it. Example: Complete government access to our phone records is in the public’s interest…. Read more
One issue arising in almost every bit of legal writing is whether the name of the country should be styled as “The Netherlands” or “the Netherlands” in a given context. This is complicated by the fact that sometimes just “Netherlands” is used. The Netherlands is one of those countries whose English name is preceded by a definite article. Let’s look… Read more
There is one place where quality does indeed matter: the marketing material and other information placed on a firm’s website or on any online location, including LinkedIn. It surprises me how many mistakes are found online. It is difficult to understand. You would think that Dutch lawyers would recognise that language mistakes made online, at the very least, diminish a… Read more
One of the English legal words that Dutch professionals tend to overuse and misuse is “fiscal”. Fiscaal is not the same as “fiscal”. “Fiscal” is a “false friend” The Dutch word fiscaal often refers to “tax”. The English equivalent “fiscal” tends to be incorrectly used as the English equivalent. However, English speakers do not use the word “fiscal” in the… Read more
The UK Supreme Court recently looked at a syntax issue in McDonald v National Grid Electricity Transmission Plc [2014] 3 WLR 1197, [2014] WLR(D) 439, [2014] UKSC 53 (22 October 2014). The issue was how to interpret a clause that had an introductory phrase and it was not clear what the introductory phrase modified because it was positioned at the… Read more
How should onverminderd artikel X be translated into English? This is a tricky translation point, perhaps one of the trickiest. At first glance, the answer seems obvious. Onverminderd artikel X should be translated as “without prejudice to article X”. This is the literal translation conventionally used in EU legislation. It reflects the French equivalent, sans préjudice de. However, there are a… Read more
We recommend formality in legal correspondence. However, it’s getting increasingly difficult to do this when English-speaking lawyers themselves seem more and more to be resorting to informality, especially in e-mails. One of the teaching points is to end correspondence with “Yours sincerely” or a similar phrase when writing to someone by name. When writing to someone without referring to them… Read more
Reviewing a procedure clause from a Dutch foundation’s terms and conditions Let’s take a close look at a typical clause from a set of Dutch general terms and conditions prepared in English. This example is based on a clause that was — quite randomly — found on the website of a Dutch foundation. In this clause, the foundation sets out the… Read more
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