Changes to the NOFOTA Trading Rules (NTR) and Rules for Arbitration (NRA)

As per 1 February 2022 the Trading Rules have been revised. Particularly the Rules for Arbitration (NRA) have been amended thoroughly.
The last revision of the Arbitration Rules was in 2015 in connection with the introduction of the new Arbitration Act. At that time, we mainly focused on the necessary adjustments in connection with the amendments to the law. There is now a desire to achieve further modernization, partly because the Corona crisis has shown that flexibility in conducting the procedures is necessary.

The main amendments in the Arbitration Rules are implemented to:

• follow the Rules in a more logic way;
• get a more logic course of the procedure;
• get more room for arbitrators to make decisions (for example on postponement requests);
• have explicit space to submit (procedural) documents electronically;
• have explicit possibility of conducting digital meetings and hearings;
• have parties informing their counterparty in all correspondence.

Furthermore, in the Criteria for Storage Companies on page 68, point 6 is deleted where reference is made to the Hygiene Code for the storage and handling of oils and fats. Reason to delete is that the hygiene code is not supported anymore by the branch association of storage companies in the Netherlands (VOTOB) and therefore also not by the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA).