Poultry farmers start lawsuit against the State

Dozens of poultry farmers are going to court because the State has not promised compensation in the emergency debate that took place on Thursday 24 August. The House of Representatives met to discuss the fipronil crisis with Minister Schippers (of Public Health) and Van Dam (of Economic Affairs). 

The poultry farmers are of the opinion that the State has failed to fulfill its duty of care in the fipronil crisis† Thursday 24 August refused the ministers Schippers and Van Dam to come up with compensation for the affected poultry farmers.

Private damage
Martijn van Dam said he assumed that not all 200 affected companies will survive the crisis. He does, however, make a package of measures available that should relieve the financial pressure on the group. Van Dam: "We have agreed that private damage must be recovered from private companies. I admit that this will be difficult in this case. But companies are damaged every day. We cannot always use taxpayers' money for support."

However, the poultry farmers find the measures insufficient. They believe that the State does not fulfill its duty of care and can therefore be held liable. 

Shot too short
Theo Linssen from Linssen Lawyers in Tilburg represents 13 poultry farmers going to court. "The government will not come up with a scheme. ChickFriend will no longer be able to recover costs." He believes that the government has fallen short in the crisis. He refers to the very concrete tips that the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) received in November on fipronil use in the poultry sector. The NVWA passed on the tips to the judiciary, but not to the sector and did not investigate further. 

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