FICTIONAL SAMPLE for Legalcomplex Monocle practice templates. No real company, person or court.
Note on authorities: the Dutch Supreme Court judgments below (Haviltex, Kelderluik) are real public decisions, cited because a public source is the point of a cite check. Citations 3 and 4 are invented for this sample and do not exist. The parties and facts are fictional.

DRAFT STATEMENT OF DEFENCE - Kestrel Row Logistics B.V. v. Vondelhof Software B.V. (fictional)

1. The contract must be read according to what the parties could reasonably expect of each other, taking the circumstances into account (HR 13 March 1981, NJ 1981/635 (Haviltex)).
2. A duty of care arises where a party creates a danger that it can foresee and prevent at reasonable cost (HR 5 November 1965, NJ 1966/136 (Kelderluik)).
3. The Supreme Court has held that a liability cap in standard terms always survives gross negligence (HR 14 June 2019, ECLI:NL:HR:2019:1000).
4. Software suppliers owe customers a duty to warn of data loss risks "regardless of any contractual limitation" (HR 22 February 2022, ECLI:NL:HR:2022:4521, Vondelhof/Kestrel).
5. Under art. 6:248 paragraph 2 of the Dutch Civil Code, a rule of the contract does not apply to the extent that this would be unacceptable by standards of reasonableness and fairness.
6. A claim for damages for non-performance requires notice of default under art. 6:82 of the Dutch Civil Code.