The lawyers at Cordemeyer & Slager each have their own particular specialist area of interest which enables them to provide our clients with a comprehensive and high-quality service. Issues relating to IT and the Internet, privacy, intellectual property, HR and employee representation, outsourcing, tendering and business law, including mergers and acquisitions are just some of the areas in which they can advise and litigate on your behalf. Our lawyers maintain a high profile in their various disciplines through active membership of professional associations, publishing, lecturing and teaching. We also regularly organize seminars and workshops for and with our clients on recent developments and areas in which we and our clients share a professional interest. We pride ourselves on our flexible and no-nonsense service and our client-focused approach.
Cordemeyer & Slager is a member of Igal, a worldwide network of accountants and lawyers, which means that we can provide a truly international service for our clients. The firm also participates in ECP.nl, is a member of Platform Outsourcing Nederland and is the preferred supplier of ICT Office.
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Tenders
You want to submit the best possible tender within the deadline; our lawyers, either individually or working as a team, help you in checking the procedures and the specification of requirements to identify any aspects that may be unclear or incomplete, and then produce a risk analysis of the purchase conditions or contracts. If you wish we can draw up a full list of questions for the summary of additional information and changes, enabling you to concentrate fully on putting together the very best tender you can. Apart from the tender itself, you can also ask us for help with any questions you may have concerning procurement law: was it in fact possible to extend that framework contract with a competitor? Does this constitute an internal procurement procedure? In a situation like this, can this tender be awarded privately? And naturally we can litigate on your behalf if necessary or submit a complaint to the European Commission.
We regularly organize seminars and workshops on procurement law, and if required we give courses in-house to give you that extra chance of success in your bid.
If you have any questions, please contact Hanneke Slager,
Anette Ligtenstein or Irvette Tempelman.
Employment and employee representation
Issues and problems relating to employment law need to be responded to and resolved as quickly as possible so that you can get on with what you really want to do: run your business or do your work with enthusiasm and enjoyment. Thanks to our in-depth knowledge of the IT market we are familiar with all the ins and outs of employment organizations in this market. We can help you in drawing up the agreements you need (employment contracts, contracts for services, contracts for directors, etc.) terminating contracts (including individual dismissals and collective redundancies), managing reorganizations and drafting redundancy packages. But you might also need to draft non-competition and non-solicitation clauses and protect intellectual property rights on software or services that have been developed by an employee, or deal with disputes on the interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement and any ensuing problems to do with employee representation. As an employer or employee, you increasingly find yourself having to contend with questions and problems to do with privacy and the use of social media. And what about compliance with non-solicitation clauses and the use of LinkedIn? We can advise you on what is possible and permitted and how you can incorporate all these aspects in your company policies.
This may mean having to draft new or amend existing personnel regulations and employment contracts. We like to be involved at an early stage in these kinds of problems, so that conflicts can be avoided wherever possible. However, if all other avenues have been explored to no avail, we will of course litigate on your behalf.
If you have any questions, please contact Marion Hagenaars or
Cathelijn Kote.
Intellectual property
The information society is inextricably linked with intellectual property rights. Copyright on software, trade names, trademark rights on IT products and services, rights to databases, a virtual address by means of a domain name; these are all rights that protect the owners against unauthorized use, encourage the development of new products and services and help safeguard the return on investment. For all these reasons, it is vital for you to have these intellectual property rights properly secured. Let’s imagine, for example, that a highly suitable and strong domain name which you have your eye on and is still available proves to be the same as a trademark or trade name of someone else.
Or that a third party suddenly claims rights to your software or, even worse, levies an attachment against users. Or that a database which you have built at considerable expense is used by a third party. As well as advising on intellectual property matters, we will litigate for you if necessary in order to safeguard your rights and interests. We go that extra mile so that you can continue to focus on your business operations.
We are here to help and advise on copyright, trademark rights and trade names, database rights and domain names. This could include drafting and negotiating agreements involving the transfer of intellectual property rights to software, a legal audit of intellectual property rights with the purchase or sale of business activities, finding out whether concepts are protected by copyright or how things stand concerning employee copyright. We can also advise on how to go about compelling someone to hand over a domain name, how unlawful use of software can be stopped or about the use of copyright-protected content by third parties on a website. These are just some of the questions and problems we can help you with in the area of technology and intellectual property.
If you have any questions, please contact Bob Cordemeyer,
Hanneke Slager, Anette Ligtenstein, Teun Burgers or Irvette Tempelman.
IT and internet
The world in which companies operate in the IT and Internet market is a dynamic one. Technological developments are continually presenting new opportunities and challenges, and so your legal support needs to be dynamic too. As lawyers for IT this has been our mantra ever since our formation in 1985. We offer that much-needed dynamism and will be happy to help you draft good and up-to-date legal documents to record your business transactions and agreements in a practical, businesslike and legally valid way. We can also assist you in negotiations if you so wish, not as deal breakers but as deal makers. And if you want to reform or professionalize your organization, we can perform an audit which will enable us to advise you on how your contracts and conditions can optimally support and promote your business strategy. Ultimately, the purpose of contracts and conditions is to describe what parties will do and ensure that they actually do what they say.
We are here to assist with all kinds of contracts, such as turnkey projects, general conditions, Saas and ASP contracts, service level agreements, distribution agreements, partner agreements, reseller agreements, licence and maintenance agreements, the purchase, sale and maintenance of hardware, hosting, developing customized solutions, contracts for building websites, etc. Should a project unexpectedly fail, we will conduct court proceedings for you with commitment and purpose to achieve the best outcome for you. But before things reach that stage we prefer to try and settle disputes amicably, such as through mediation.
If you have any questions about IT, please contact Hanneke Slager,
Bob Cordemeyer, Anette Ligtenstein or Irvette Tempelman.
As an operator of a social media website, for example, or a supplier of web services or a web shop owner, your main concern is to have your services available or sell your products without the headache of having to deal with all the legal issues that go with it. What agreements should I make with the website builder? What about privacy, or cloud computing and safe harbours? Why do I need a disclaimer and what form should it take? What conditions should I use? How do I know whether the examples I get from the Internet are correct? Who is responsible for backing up the data? What should I do if prohibited content is placed on the website? What if my domain name is the same as someone else’s trade name or trademark? Cordemeyer & Slager/ Advocaten puts your mind at rest and answers all these and many other questions to do with the use of the Internet.
We know precisely what legal aspects need to be settled and how to go about it, and can take care of it all professionally and thoroughly.
If you have any questions about the Internet, please contact
Bob Cordemeyer, Irvette Tempelman or Teun Burgers.
Business law and acquisitions
As executive director, shareholder or supervisory director of a private limited company, you can call on us for advice on your powers, obligations and liability (both internally in your company and externally towards third parties). We will also be happy to draft or assess management agreements, shareholder agreements, executive decisions and shareholders’ resolutions for you. We can check for you whether the corporate housekeeping of a private limited company is in order and can make recommendations in this area. We give advice on setting up companies (private limited companies, professional partnerships and commercial partnerships) or winding them up, such as in the event of insolvency or the retirement of a director, shareholder or partner.
We assist with mergers, international and national acquisitions, share transactions and assets/receivables transactions. We carry out legal due diligence investigations and can prepare your company for a takeover, such as by performing a legal audit. You can call on us to help with drafting, assessing and negotiating letters of intent (LOI), non-disclosure agreements (NDA), share purchase agreements (SPA), and asset purchase agreements (APA). We assist in all kinds of share transactions, including management buy-outs (MBO) and management buy-ins (MBI).
If you have any questions, please contact Carine Korteweg.
Outsourcing
You intend to outsource some of your business processes. To get it right you need to sort out all the legal aspects first, varying from issues of management, service level agreements, privacy and issues relating to cloud computing to creating good arrangements for personnel who are to be transferred or retained by the company. We can help you in this area by drawing up, and if needed negotiating (with your input too) the necessary contracts: we have all the required professional disciplines in-house. Perhaps you also need an ISAE3402 or ISAE3000 certificate; thanks to our collaboration with a number of EDP auditors we can help you to coordinate the SLA with certification and vice-versa.
If you have any questions, please contact Hanneke Slager or
Bob Cordemeyer.
Privacy
Technological developments, the need for people to exchange information with and about each other and an ever increasing variety of means of communication available to us place huge demands on our privacy.
Who has information about us, where is that information and who is in charge of it? What and where is our digital identity? What do we want others to know and store about us and for how long? Who has access to that information? These are all questions that will challenge you in your various roles as employer, payroll administrator or operator of a social media site or supplier of web services and which you must be able to answer. We explain clearly all the legal issues associated with privacy and advise you on what is possible or permitted, and how best to incorporate these in your business strategy. Or perhaps you want to explore certification options, such as ISAE 3402 or ISO 27002, or the use of LinkedIn, hyves, Facebook or GPS-based applications, and how to assess or draw up rules for your employees on the use of social media. We can also help you with practical matters to do with privacy law: from cookies, mailings, the cloud and safe harbour principles, to explaining what is actually meant by an ‘editor’ or a ‘responsible party’. We help you fast, with advice that is practical and to the point, leaving you free to concentrate on your core business.
If you have any questions, please contact Irvette Tempelman or
Marion Hagenaars.
If you would like more information or have any questions about any of the areas of law described above, please feel free to contact us entirely without obligation.