Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (Dutch DPA) – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2020)

On 8 January 2019 DPA agreed to pay a penalty to the claimant for delaying the decision on her case. The decision was due on 30 November 2018. According to the DPA, the penalty was supposed to be 60 EUR for the delay until 3 December 2018. Claimant objected because the registered letter with the decision was delivered to her on 8 January 2019 instead of 3 December 2018. On 8 May 2019 DPA declared the claimant’s objection not valid. Claimant launched an appeal. The Court must assess whether the DPA was responsible for the delay in delivering the decision caused by a mistake at the postal service. The Court agreed with the claimant. Article 4:17(1) of the Dutch administrative law says that an administrative body must pay penalties for not handling complaints in a timely manner. Article 4:17(2) of the same law defines the size of the penalty: 23 EUR per day for the first 14 days of delay, 35 EUR per day for the subsequent 14 days and 45 EUR per day after that. The Court ruled that a decision can be considered finalized when the applicant is made aware of it. In the present case the decision was sent to the complaint by registered mail, but it arrived with a delay because of a mistake at the postal service. According to the Court, this fact did not relieve the DPA of its responsibility: Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens should have considered the risks of sending the decision by post when choosing method of communication.