The two recent decisions of the EU Court of Justice (hereinafter “the Court”). Bougnaoui v. Micropole and Achbita v. G4S Secure Solutions were instances expected to give, each in their own context, an answer to the following question : in what conditions can an employer from the private sector prohibit the wearing of religious symbols at work ? 1. Balance between…
An employer who unilaterally exempts an employee from performance during the notice period is guilty of an implicit dismissal, because not providing work is a change of an essential contract component. The fact that the employee waited over one month to bring up the implicit dismissal was also not late, as a result of which…
An employment agreement in English and the non-compete clause it contains, are absolutely void due to violation of the Dutch Language Decree. The correction that the annulment may not negatively affect the rights of the employee, and which is provided in article 10 of the Dutch Language Decree, does not cause the absolutely void non-compete…
A company and an independent consultant got caught up in legal proceedings after the company terminated the service agreement with the consultant – who also owns a number of shares in the company – due to gross negligence. In the main dispute, the consultant’s claim for payment of a significant indemnity for wrongful termination of…
An employee who filed legal proceedings against her ex-employer and obtained part of her claims, was in for a nasty surprise. Although she had won the proceedings – at least partially – she was ordered by the court to pay all court costs, including the procedural indemnity. The procedural indemnity (“rechtsplegingsvergoeding”) consist of a fixed…