A group of dairy farmers who supply or have supplied to Bel Leerdammer have lost a battle in the protracted conflict with the cheese maker from Schoonrewoerd about the payment of the milk price. The Court of Appeal of The Hague ruled on Tuesday 13 July that the dairy farmers could not assume that the membership fee was part of the promised reference price.
Dinant te Biesebeek, the lawyer for the group of 475 dissatisfied dairy farmers, is considering appealing to the Supreme Court. Bel Leerdammer has been in a legal conflict with the group of dairy farmers for years. The milk suppliers claim that they received too little milk money between 2010 and 2015 and are demanding compensation for this. Their claim is estimated at more than €50 million, an amount that is added every year with an interest rate of 8%.
Strike through earlier verdict
According to Te Biesebeek, the Court of Appeal ruled that the dairy farmers could not rely on the membership fees of the reference companies being part of the milk price. With this ruling, the court a line through the judgment of the court of Rotterdam, who decided in 2019 that dairy farmers could assume that the membership fee was a component of the milk price to be paid.
In the period between 2010 and 2015, the milk price of Bel Leerdammer was related to that of FrieslandCampina, DOC Kaas, Cono and the former Nemelco (now Vreugdenhil). The first 3 of these milk processors are cooperatives and pay members' fees. The Bel Leerdammer dairy farmers report that the membership fee was not reflected in the reference price. Bel Leerdammer refutes this and says that the plaintiffs should have understood that the membership fee is not part of the reference price, because the company is not a cooperative.
Cassation at the Supreme Court
in Biesebeek mentions the ruling in an explanation 'not only disappointing, but also incomprehensible'. He sees many contradictions in the motivation of the judgment and expects to appeal to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the Netherlands, after a consultation.
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