Chetu Inc. – Court Ruling (Netherlands, 2022)

Chetu Inc (the controller) is a Florida based company that has a branch in the Netherlands. It develops, produces and publishes software and provides consultancy and support for information technology. The data subject worked for the controller since 14 January 2019. The data subject signed a statement stating that his employment was “at-will employment”, meaning that the company may terminate the employment relationship without cause or previous notice, at any time. On 23 August 2022, the data subject received an e-mail from the controller announcing his attendance for the Corrective Action Program (CAP)-virtual classroom where he had to be logged in during the entire work day, to share his screen and leave his camera on. On 25 August 2022 the data subject responded, stating he was uncomfortable being monitored 9 hours a day by camera, and that it was an invasion of his privacy, as he already has his activities on his laptop and his screen being monitored. After two more warnings for the data subject to his camera on, the controller sent an e-mail the same evening, stating that the data subject’s employment is terminated with the reason being: “Refusal to work, Insubordination.”. The Court held that the summary of the dismissal was not legally valid, following the requirements under article 7:677(1) of the Dutch Civil Code (BW). The provision states that there must be an ‘urgent reason’, the dismissal must be without delay, and the reason must be communicated to the employee in a timely and sufficiently clear manner. The e-mail sent to the data subject listed “refusal to work” and "insubordination” as the ‘urgent reasons’. The Court found that the reason was not sufficiently clear, as the email had no explanation on the nature and seriousness of the behaviour which underlay the ‘urgent reasons’ stated in the e-mail. The e-mail correspondence also did not sufficiently prove that the data subject refused to perform his assigned activities. Hence, the alleged refu