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Don't panic at DOC about negative advice about the lawsuit
DOC Kaas remains confident in a positive outcome of a cassation case, despite a negative advice from the Advocate General in this procedure. The advice to the Supreme Court is to order DOC Kaas to pay compensation to 63 dropouts.
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The latter group resigned from DOC Kaas after the cooperative's decision to merge with the German DMK, partly with delay. These farmers believed that they were entitled to their share of the merger bonus, plus a portion of the milk money that had been paid to the 'stayers' in December 2016, but not to the quitters.
Fees
They also want payment of statutory interest on their outstanding balances with DOC Kaas, as stated in the claim to the cooperative. Another group wants compensation because they stayed until January 1, 2019 for fear of missing out on the merger bonus and having to pay compensation, while in retrospect they might have been better off staying elsewhere.
So far, DOC Kaas has always appealed against a lost lawsuit, until the final instance the ongoing cassation appeal. A ruling will be announced early next year. In anticipation of this, the Advocate General's advice has now been published. This advice is usually broadly followed by the Supreme Court.
An advisory report was also made public last week a Dutch farmer (and dropout), who, after seven years of litigation, also seems to have been proven right against DOC Kaas.
The Hoogeveen cooperative says that it accepts the advice of the Advocate General and looks forward to the final ruling with confidence.