The Court hearing took place at March 11, 2020, right before the Court closed for hearings in person due to the Covid-19 crisis.
Our client – a Columbian show jumping rider – bought a five year old jumping mare from a Dutch horse trader located in Gaanderen. When visiting the stables our client found out that the horse was not as talented as shown on the video sent by the horse trader before buying. The horse trader regained the trust of our client and parties agreed that the horse trader would train and resell the horse for our client: everything would be arranged he assured. Unfortunately nothing happened: the horse trader did not sell the horse for over a year, but claimed training and stabling costs over this period our client. Without full payment he refused to let go the horse to our client.
As our client lost trust in the horse trader ever selling the horse our client paid the training and stabling costs and send a transport company to the premises of the horse trader to get the horse he bought. To great annoyance of our client the horse trader still refused to release the horse to the transport company and he claimed more and more money from our client. As a result our client was forced to start a legal procedure in the Netherlands to get the horse he bought.
The Dutch Court rendered a verdict stating that the horse trader should have released the horse almost a year ago as everything was paid by our client. The horse trader is not allowed to claim any further costs regarding the horse as its was unlawfully in his possession. Furthermore the horse trader is convicted to pay the transport costs our client made regarding the failed transport and the legal costs of our client.
Unfortunately the hose is still not released to our client, despite of a conviction under penalty of EUR 500,00 a day. The horse trader now claims the horse died in a stable in Italy due to Rhino (kind of comparable with the human Covid-19 virus) on the date the verdict was rendered by the Court (?!). Sufficient proof of this is not delivered and of course the horse trader was not allowed to transport our client’s horse to Italy without his permission. So to be continued…
The verdict is published under number: ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2020:2264 > https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:RBGEL:2020:2264
