The situation
The facts of a client dispute and the legal question
A client’s supplier terminated a long-term contract on short notice. The client wants to know whether it can claim, and the partner wants a memo by Thursday on how the courts have treated termination of long-term supply relationships.
The statute gives you the framework. The answer is in the decisions: what notice the courts found reasonable, which facts moved them and how damages were measured. Finding those decisions is where the hours go.
What the research has to settle
The rules behind the answer
- Start from the question, not the keyword
- Courts describe the same issue in different words. A search on the legal question finds decisions a keyword search misses.
- Weigh the court, the date and the facts
- A recent appellate decision on similar facts carries more weight than an old first-instance one. A memo should say which is which.
- Read the holding in the original
- A summary points you to the decision. The memo should rest on the paragraphs you have read yourself.
- Note where the courts disagree
- Conflicting lines of authority are part of the answer. The client needs to know the risk as well as the best argument.
How it runs in azta
From the question to the document
The question, as you would type it
Dutch law. Supplier ended a 9-year exclusive supply relationship with 2 months’ notice. How have the courts assessed a reasonable notice period and compensation in long-term supply relationships since 2015? Group the decisions by outcome.
You start with
The facts of a client dispute and the legal question
- 01
Set out the facts and the jurisdiction
Describe the relationship, the termination and what the client lost. azta focuses the search on the jurisdiction and period you name.
Cited research· Free - 02
Search the decisions
azta searches the published case law of the national courts it holds, which are about two thirds of its documents, and returns the decisions closest to your facts.
Case-law search - 03
Build the memo
Ask for a memo grouping the decisions by outcome, with court, date and the decisive facts for each. Edit it in Canvas.
Canvas · Ask azta· Pro - 04
Export and file
Export to Word with the case references in place, ready for the partner’s review.
Word export· Pro You send
A research memo summarising the relevant decisions, each linked to the full text
What you get
A research memo summarising the relevant decisions, each linked to the full text
Research memo · draft
Termination of long-term supply relationships: notice and compensation
Summary. The decisions reviewed treat the length of the relationship, the degree of dependence and the investments made by the terminated party as the main factors in assessing notice. None sets a fixed period.
Decisions finding the notice insufficient. In the decisions listed in Annex A, the courts found notice of a few months insufficient where the relationship had lasted many years and the terminated party depended on it for most of its turnover.
Decisions finding the notice sufficient. Where the terminated party had other customers or had been warned of the change in advance, shorter notice was upheld. These decisions are listed in Annex B.
Outcomes on your numbers
What azta is worth on this task
Pro pays for itself after
8 minutes a month
At €220 an hour, that is all the time Pro (€27 a month) has to take off your desk to cover its price.
Example figures. Replace them with your own.
- Hours back a year
- 101
- Capacity at your rate
- €22,176
- More case-law memos a quarter
- 3
- Return on Pro
- 68.4×
- Research
- Drafting
- Your review
A scenario you set, not a promise. The hours that come back go to another client, or deeper into this one.
Want these numbers on your team’s real workload?
Book a demoSources azta searches here
- Rechtspraak.nl
- SAOS
- Rechtsprechung im Internet
- EUR-Lex · Curia
What stays with you
- Reading the decisions the memo relies on.
- Judging how the client’s facts compare.
- The advice and the strategy.
Frequently asked questions
- Which courts does azta search?
- The published decisions of the national courts in its source register, plus the Court of Justice of the EU. Coverage varies by country; the register lists each collection.
- Can it search decisions in another language?
- Yes. azta searches decisions in their original language and answers in yours, with links to the original text.
- Will it cite decisions that don’t exist?
- Every decision in an answer comes from the source collections and links to the full text, so you can open each one and check it.
