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Intellectual Property Law in the Netherlands

Parallel imports in the Netherlands: stop or sell them?

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Parallel imports in the Netherlands are lawful for genuine branded goods that the trade mark owner, or someone with its consent, first put on the market in the European Economic Area (EEA). Goods first sold outside the EEA need the owner’s consent. As a Dutch IP lawyer at MAAK Advocaten in Amsterdam, I advise foreign brand owners and traders before they sell, buy or enforce.

This article, part of intellectual property law in the Netherlands, is for brand owners outside the Netherlands whose goods turn up at Dutch webshops or wholesalers, and for foreign traders who sell branded goods to Dutch customers. What you agree with distributors about territory and resale is covered under Dutch distribution law.

What are parallel imports under Dutch and EU law?

Parallel imports are genuine branded goods sold outside the trade mark owner’s official channel, for example bought cheaper abroad and resold in the Netherlands. They are also called grey market goods or grey imports. Counterfeits are a different matter: they always infringe.

The starting point is strict. The owner of a trade mark registered for the Benelux can prohibit others from offering, putting on the market, importing or exporting goods under the mark (Article 2.20(3)(b) and (c) Benelux Convention on Intellectual Property (BCIP)). Parallel trade is lawful only where that right is exhausted.

Exhaustion works the same way for a Benelux trade mark (Article 2.23(3) BCIP) and for an EU trade mark (Article 15 of Regulation (EU) 2017/1001). Licensing rules for medicines are a separate question; this article deals with trade mark law.

When may you sell parallel imports in the Netherlands?

You may resell branded goods in the Netherlands if the trade mark owner, or someone with its consent, first put those exact goods on the market inside the EEA. The owner’s right is then exhausted, unless it has legitimate reasons to object.

That rule is in Article 2.23(3) BCIP and Article 15(1) of the EU Trade Mark Regulation. Exhaustion works item by item: consent must cover each individual product and cannot be inferred from consent for other, similar products (Court of Appeal of The Hague 23 June 2026, ECLI:NL:GHDHA:2026:1975, para. 6.33).

Selling a well-known brand into the Netherlands is often good business, and in most cases it is perfectly lawful. Before the first shipment I want you to be able to answer one question with documents: where were these goods first put on the market? If that was inside the European Economic Area, by the brand owner or with its consent, you may resell them here. If they come from outside the EEA, you need the brand owner’s consent, and silence is not consent. So in practice:

  1. Ask your supplier for a written statement of origin per delivery.
  2. Keep the invoices and packing lists.
  3. Leave the batch codes on the products.

Those three things are what a Dutch court will look at. With them, a letter from the brand owner is a conversation, not a crisis.

Your goods leak in from markets outside Europe: can you stop them?

Yes, if the goods were first sold outside the EEA and you never consented to their sale inside it. Selling in the US or Asia does not exhaust your rights in Europe, and EU Member States may not adopt worldwide exhaustion.

National rules providing for exhaustion of goods first sold outside the EEA are contrary to EU law (Court of Justice 16 July 1998, C-355/96, Silhouette, operative part 1). Your consent can be implied only if the facts unequivocally show that you renounced your rights; it cannot be inferred from silence, from the absence of a warning on the goods, or from a sale without contractual restrictions (Court of Justice 20 November 2001, C-414/99 to C-416/99, Zino Davidoff and Levi Strauss, operative parts 1 and 2).

That hurts twice: your distributor loses margin and starts asking what you are going to do about it. My first step is not a letter but a test purchase. We buy a few items, record the batch codes and packaging, and compare them with your own markets. That tells us where the goods were first sold. If that was outside the European Economic Area, for example in the US or in Asia, and you never agreed to their sale in Europe, Dutch and EU law are on your side: you can have the sale and import stopped in the Netherlands. If they leaked from one of your own European distributors, the trade mark route is mostly closed, and the answer lies in your contracts.

See also enforcing trade mark rights in the Netherlands and, on coding goods per market, brand protection under Dutch law.

Seeing your goods from outside Europe at a Dutch webshop? Have the origin and your options assessed by a Dutch IP lawyer before you send the first letter.

Who has to prove where the goods came from?

As a rule, the trader. Whoever relies on exhaustion or consent must prove it. But if the brand owner sells through an exclusive or selective network in the EEA, the burden can move to the brand owner first.

The trader alleging consent must prove it (Davidoff, para. 54). Where the trader shows a real risk of partitioning national markets, particularly where the owner uses an exclusive distribution system in the EEA, the owner must first prove that the goods were initially put on the market outside the EEA; the trader then proves consent (Court of Justice 8 April 2003, C-244/00, Van Doren + Q, para. 41 and operative part). Otherwise a trader who names his source inside the network would lose that supply (para. 40).

For an EU trade mark, the burden may not lie exclusively with the trader where four circumstances coincide (Court of Justice 18 January 2024, C-367/21, Hewlett Packard Development Company, operative part):

  • the goods carry no marking that shows their intended market;
  • they are sold through a selective network whose members may only resell within the network or to end users;
  • the trader bought them in the EU or EEA after an assurance from the seller that they could lawfully be sold there;
  • the brand owner refuses to verify their origin at the buyer’s request.

Evidence is assessed delivery by delivery. In a 2026 case about Puma boxer shorts, at least four items from one delivery were counterfeit, and the wholesaler could not show with documented batch numbers that this delivery matched what Puma’s licensee had supplied; the court upheld the injunction (ECLI:NL:GHDHA:2026:1975, para. 6.35) and the damages for that delivery (para. 6.53). For two other deliveries, the wholesaler showed with invoices, colour codes and a signed report on its purchasing records that the goods came from Puma’s licensee; there the rights were exhausted and no damages were due (paras. 6.51 and 6.53).

You received a Dutch cease-and-desist letter: what now?

Do not sign and do not ignore it. Pause sales of the batch concerned, gather proof of origin per delivery, and then choose a strategy before the deadline in the letter (sommatie) runs out.

A Dutch cease-and-desist letter with a short deadline feels like an ultimatum, especially from abroad. In the first days I do three things with you.

  1. We pause sales of the batch concerned in the Netherlands. That costs little and keeps your position clean.
  2. We put together what you can show about origin, delivery by delivery.
  3. We choose the strategy. If your supply chain is clean and the goods demonstrably come from the EEA, we put that on the table and the matter usually ends there. If the brand owner runs an exclusive or selective network and your source would dry up the moment you name it, we first ask the brand owner to show that the goods came from outside the EEA.

What I will not let you do is sign an undertaking with a penalty clause before we know where the goods came from.

Besides an injunction, the court can order recall or destruction at the infringer’s expense (Article 2.22(1) BCIP) and order you to disclose the origin and distribution channels (Article 2.22(4) BCIP). How far that duty reaches in parallel trade is pending before the Court of Justice (Case C-579/25, DelicaSea, referred by the Court of Appeal of The Hague, lodged on 2 September 2025). The losing party can also be ordered to pay the winner’s reasonable and proportionate legal costs (Article 1019h Dutch Code of Civil Procedure). See also trade mark disputes in the Netherlands.

Can you relabel or repackage goods for the Dutch market?

Only with care. Even after exhaustion, the brand owner can object for legitimate reasons, especially where the condition of the goods has been changed or impaired after the first sale, or where the resale harms the brand’s reputation.

That exception is in Article 2.23(3) BCIP and Article 15(2) of the EU Trade Mark Regulation; changed condition is only an example (Court of Justice 11 July 1996, C-427/93, C-429/93 and C-436/93, Bristol-Myers Squibb, para. 39). For luxury goods, harm to the reputation of the trade mark can in principle be a legitimate reason (Court of Justice 23 April 2009, C-59/08, Copad, para. 55). For repackaged medicines the Court set five conditions, including that the packaging states who repackaged the product and that the owner gets notice before sale (Bristol-Myers Squibb, operative part 3).

This is where well-run parallel trade most often goes wrong. My advice is: sell the product as it arrives, in its original packaging, with its original codes. If something must be added, such as a Dutch label or leaflet, make clear on the packaging who added it, and tell the brand owner before you start selling. For medicines, the courts have spelled out those steps precisely; for other products they are a sensible guide. That way you remove the brand owner’s strongest argument before it is ever made.

Your Dutch exclusive distributor wants action: who sues?

You, as the trade mark owner, in most cases. A licensee can bring an infringement action only with the owner’s consent. An exclusive licensee can also act if the owner, after notice, does not sue within a reasonable period.

Both rules are in Article 2.32(4) BCIP for a Benelux trade mark and in Article 25(3) of the EU Trade Mark Regulation for an EU trade mark, in both cases without prejudice to what the licence agreement says. Whether your distributor is also a licensee depends on your agreements. In Van Doren, the German exclusive distributor sued in its own name because the US owner had authorised it to do so (para. 8). Against a licensee itself, the trade mark helps only where it breaches licence terms on duration, form of the mark, goods or services, territory or quality (Article 2.32(2) BCIP and Article 25(2) EU Trade Mark Regulation; Copad, operative part 2). Otherwise its sales are, as a rule, made with your consent (para. 46).

Your distributor sees the problem first, so it is natural that they want to act. But the trade mark is yours, and so is the right to enforce it. My preferred set-up is simple: you are the claimant, your Dutch distributor gathers the evidence on the ground, and we coordinate both from Amsterdam. You do not need to travel for that. If your distributor is also your exclusive licensee and you want them to act in their own name, give them written consent; that avoids discussion about their standing.

What you may impose on your European distributors about resale into other EEA countries is limited by competition law; see price and territory agreements with distributors and, for a distributor’s contractual claims, breach of exclusivity in a Dutch distribution agreement.

What about goods from the United Kingdom?

The test stays the same: were these goods first put on the market in the EEA? For trade mark rights exhausted in both the EU and the UK before the Brexit transition period ended on 31 December 2020, the Withdrawal Agreement keeps them exhausted.

That rule is in Article 61 of the Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union; the end date of the transition period is in Article 126. For goods first put on the UK market after that date, the place and date of first sale have to be documented like any other origin.

Practice example: a US skincare brand (illustration)

Suppose a US skincare brand with an EU trade mark sells in Europe through one exclusive distributor per country. Its Dutch distributor finds US packaging at a Dutch online retailer, well below its own price. This is an illustration, not a real case.

A test purchase shows batch codes from the US market, so sale in the EEA needs the brand owner’s consent (Davidoff). The retailer says it bought from an EU wholesaler it will not name. Because the brand uses exclusive distributors, the brand may first have to prove the US origin (Van Doren); the codes and the test purchase are the start of that proof. A settlement on the remaining stock is then an obvious way out.

When do you need a Dutch lawyer?

As a trader, before you buy a large batch whose origin is not documented, and as soon as a Dutch cease-and-desist letter arrives. As a brand owner, as soon as your goods appear outside your network in the Netherlands.

At MAAK Advocaten I coordinate with your in-house team or your own lawyers at home. We establish where the goods came from and who has to prove what, and then take the step that fits your goal: selling on with confidence, a settlement with the other side, or stopping the sales. You know your market and your partners. The Dutch trade mark questions, the evidence and the procedure, we take off your hands.

Costs depend on the origin research, the test purchases and whether the matter ends with a letter or goes to court, including the cost risk under Article 1019h Dutch Code of Civil Procedure.

How does MAAK Advocaten handle parallel import cases?

We act for brand owners and their distributors who want to protect their network, and for traders who receive a letter. We start with origin and evidence, look for a settlement first and litigate where needed.

In the first days we review invoices, codes and contracts, record the origin per delivery and draft the letter or the reply.

Often that is a letter and a conversation; sometimes it is kort geding (summary proceedings), and where needed proceedings on the merits, before the Dutch courts in first instance and on appeal.

Frequently asked questions

Are parallel imports legal in the Netherlands?

Yes, for genuine branded goods that the trade mark owner, or someone with its consent, first put on the market in the European Economic Area; the owner’s right is then exhausted (Article 2.23(3) BCIP). Goods first sold outside the EEA need the owner’s unequivocal consent.

Can a US or Asian brand owner stop grey market goods in the Netherlands?

Yes, if the goods were first sold outside the European Economic Area and the owner never consented to their sale inside it. Selling abroad does not exhaust the trade mark in Europe (Silhouette). Consent cannot be inferred from silence or from the absence of a warning on the goods (Davidoff).

Does selling goods in one EU country exhaust my trade mark in the Netherlands?

Yes. Once you, or someone with your consent, put specific goods on the market anywhere in the European Economic Area, you cannot stop their resale in the Netherlands, unless you have legitimate reasons, such as a changed or impaired condition of the goods.

Can my Dutch distributor take action against parallel importers?

Usually not on its own. A licensee can bring an infringement action only with the trade mark owner’s consent; an exclusive licensee also if the owner, after notice, does not act within a reasonable period (Article 2.32(4) BCIP; Article 25(3) EU Trade Mark Regulation). A distributor without a licence can rely on its contract with you.

Do I need a Dutch lawyer if I receive a Dutch cease-and-desist letter?

It is wise to have one before you reply or sign anything. A Dutch IP lawyer checks the origin of each delivery, who bears the burden of proof and what the sender can claim, such as recall, disclosure of your sources and legal costs.

Primary sources

Last checked on 4 November 2026 · next relevant date: judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-579/25 (DelicaSea), date not yet known

Your goods sold in the Netherlands outside your network, or a Dutch letter about goods you sell? Put your situation to me: call +31 20 210 31 38 or send your question through my page as Dutch intellectual property lawyer. — Arnout Gieske

Arnout Gieske

Dutch lawyer

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