Martijn van de Hel has filed a complaint with ACM on behalf of legal expenses insurer SRK (BrandMR) regarding the rules for lawyers drawn up by the Dutch Bar Association. By means of BrandMR, SRK intends to provide legal assistance to a large group of people who are currently steering clear of legal action due to the unpredictability of the process and the costs involved. This group is also increasingly less eligible for legal aid. By means of BrandMR, SRK and its lawyers wish to provide legal services with a transparent and predetermined price per procedural step. Several stakeholders, including the Ministry for Legal Protection, have already responded enthusiastically to this initiative of SRK.
Partly in response to questions of ACM regarding this complaint, the Dutch Bar Association has made it possible for BrandMR and other legal expenses insurers to represent uninsured persons. The Dutch Bar Association long held the position that the independence of the legal profession might be jeopardised if lawyers in the employment of a legal expenses insurers also represented uninsured persons. But a study by SEO (the Economic Research Foundation of the University of Amsterdam), carried out at BrandMR’s request, has shown that the professional rules stand in the way of healthy competition. The Board of Representatives of the Dutch Bar Association has decided that lawyers in the employment of legal expenses insurers may also represent uninsured persons. This is a temporary exemption from the Legal Profession Regulations for the 2021-2026 period.
This temporary relaxation of the professional regulations has given legal service providers that are not traditional law firms, such as legal expenses insurers, more room for manoeuvre. An important condition attached to the provision of services is that the majority of the board members of a participating insurer or loss adjuster must themselves be lawyers. ACM is now wondering whether the temporary relaxation goes far enough. The Minister for Legal Protection also recently urged the Dutch Bar Association to scrutinise the regulations. Depending on the impact of the temporary relaxation, there may be more scope for alternative business structures in the legal profession in the future.
More information on the broadening of the rules can be found in e.g. the FD, NRC, Advocatie.nl, Mr-Online and the Advocatenblad.
