Legal terminology
To read through a Dutch end-user license agreement (de licentie), you will need some formal vocabulary. You will often see that these documents are bindend (binding) for de gebruiker (the user).
| This document is binding for every user of the license. | Dit document is bindend voor elke gebruiker van de licentie. |
Companies will also frequently attempt to uitsluiten (exclude) their aansprakelijkheid (liability) as uitdrukkelijk (explicitly) as possible.
| We explicitly exclude all liability. | Wij sluiten elke aansprakelijkheid uitdrukkelijk uit. |
Contracts also frequently lay out a beperking (restriction) to prevent onrechtmatig (unlawful) behavior, and they detail rules about intellectueel (intellectual) property and what users can overdragen (transfer).
| The user must comply with the restriction on unlawful use. | De gebruiker moet de beperking op onrechtmatig gebruik naleven. |
| The license will not transfer any intellectual property. | De licentie zal geen intellectueel eigendom overdragen. |
Auxiliary omission in relative clauses
When reading dense legal texts, you may notice something missing in the relative clauses. In very formal written Dutch, the auxiliary verbs zijn (to be) and worden (to be / to become) are often dropped entirely at the end of a relative clause.
For example, instead of writing de beperkingen die in dit contract vermeld zijn (the limitations that are mentioned in this contract), a legal text might simply drop the final zijn. This is known as auxiliary omission, and it gives the sentence a very compact, formal tone:
| The limitations mentioned in this contract are explicitly binding. | De beperkingen die in dit contract vermeld, zijn uitdrukkelijk bindend. |
This also happens frequently with passive voice constructions. The auxiliary verb wordt can be omitted right after the past participle:
| The damage caused by unlawful use is excluded. | De schade die door onrechtmatig gebruik veroorzaakt, wordt uitgesloten. |
| The liability transferred to us is limited to the software. | De aansprakelijkheid die aan ons overgedragen, beperkt zich tot de software. |