Browse through brief employment and labor law updates from around the globe. Contact a Littler attorney for more information or view our global locations.

View all Q1 2018 Global Guide Quarterly updates

Alcoholism Can Be Considered an Illness, Transition Allowance Not Automatically Excluded

Precedential Decision by Judiciary or Regulatory Agency

Author: Annelot Peters, Attorney-at-Law – Rutgers & Posch

The Dutch Supreme Court recently held that an employee with an alcohol addiction who was dismissed on an urgent cause (ontslag op staande voet) was not automatically excluded from the transition allowance (transitievergoeding), noting that in cases of employees with an alcohol addiction, the factual circumstances must be considered to determine whether the condition is an illness and, thus, not an imputable act of the employee. Employers, therefore, should note that even if the dismissal is considered legal and the employee is to blame for the dismissal, they still might need to pay a transition allowance that can mount up to EUR 79,000 (maximum in 2018) or a yearly salary, whichever is the highest.

To Avoid Steep Penalties, Companies Are Aiming at Becoming “GDPR Proof”

New Regulation or Official Guidance

Author: Annelot Peters, Attorney-at-Law – Rutgers & Posch

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) shall be binding in all EU Member States, including The Netherlands, as of May 25, 2018. The existing Dutch Data Protection Act (which already was largely aligned to the upcoming changes) will, to a great extent, be repealed by the Dutch legislator. While no major changes are expected, the introduction of the new penalties for non-compliance is new in The Netherlands and will now be determined by the Regulation and amount to a maximum of EUR 20,000,000 or a maximum of 4% of the total worldwide annual turnover. As, historically, the related penalties were not often imposed in The Netherlands, Dutch companies, having these new penalties in mind, are doing their best to ensure they are “privacy regulation proof” as of May 25, 2018.

Top Public and Semi–Public Sector Incomes

Proposed Bill or Initiative

Author: Annelot Peters, Attorney-at-Law – Rutgers & Posch

In the 2017 Global Guide Quarterly’s Fourth Quarter, we reported the repeal of the so-called WNT III, which was a proposal that sought, in part, to standardize the salaries of top public and semi-public officials to ensure those salaries do not exceed those of government ministers. The Dutch government recently announced a new legislative proposal, essentially reinstating some of the related proposals and addressing previous objections. One of the measures is for the WNT to apply to corporations that provide care. The other measure is for “parent companies” to fall under the definition of “company” and not only the subsidiaries of the company, which is the current situation. The Dutch government intends to submit this new legislative proposal by the end of 2018.