A founder sends an employee home after a serious conflict. The building pass is collected, colleagues are informed and the difficult meeting ends. The employee’s mailbox still works, however. Shared folders remain visible from a home laptop. Nobody has checked whether messages can be forwarded to a private address.
That gap sat at the centre of a Rotterdam District Court judgment dated 12 January 2026. A municipal employee had been suspended and expressly denied access to municipal premises, systems and the digital network. An ICT investigation later found continued activity in that environment, including confidential information sent to a private email address and to a colleague.
The municipality confronted her on 9 September 2025 and dismissed her with immediate effect. The court upheld the dismissal. It also ordered payment of 75 percent of the transition payment.
This is more than a case about private email. It shows what must happen when an employment conflict reaches the information systems that keep a business running.
The instruction must match the facts
Dutch law requires an urgent reason, immediate dismissal and immediate communication of that reason. Courts assess the full setting, including the seriousness of the conduct, the employment relationship, the employee’s record, personal circumstances and the consequences of losing the job.
In Rotterdam, the employee had received a clear written restriction. The court also considered the wider conflict and a warning against further escalation. The parties agreed that the municipality acted promptly and communicated its reasons promptly.
That sequence matters. When an employee challenges summary dismissal, the employer must state and, where necessary, establish that the urgent reason existed when the dismissal took place. The dismissal letter therefore needs to match the facts the employer can reconstruct.
A broad statement that trust has disappeared carries little practical weight by itself. Management needs to know what happened, which information was involved, which instruction applied and when each step occurred. The employee also deserves a precise account of the concern and a fair chance to respond.
Suspension is an information-control event
Consider a twelve-person payroll business. A senior administrator can access salary exports, sickness records, identity details and bank information. After a dispute, the founder tells her not to work and asks for the office key. The external IT provider is called the following morning.
For those hours, the employment decision and the digital reality move at different speeds. That is where the business becomes exposed.
Email, cloud storage, remote login, shared drives, forwarding rules and mobile access each require a deliberate decision. Preserving logs matters as much as closing access. A rushed account deletion may contain one risk while removing records needed to establish what happened.
Small firms face particular pressure because access grows informally. Someone hired to handle invoices may later administer payroll, customer contracts and a shared mailbox. Permissions accumulate because the business needs work done. Few people stop to ask whether that access remains necessary.
The municipal setting gives this point added weight. A 2026 Rijksoverheid report found that 79.5 percent of municipalities met all examined Suwinet security standards in 2024. Suwinet is a specific system, but the operational lesson travels well. Access controls protect people’s information, not an abstract IT policy.
The exit can remain expensive
Summary dismissal ends wage payment immediately. UWV separately assesses whether the worker became unemployed through their own fault when deciding WW entitlement. The consequences can therefore begin on the first day, while the wider legal and financial questions continue.
The Rotterdam judgment also shows why a valid dismissal is not necessarily a cheap exit. The court classified the conduct as seriously culpable. That normally excludes a transition payment under Article 7:673 of the Civil Code.
The same article allows a court to award all or part of that payment when withholding it would be unacceptable under standards of reasonableness and fairness. In Rotterdam, the employee had worked for the municipality for more than 23 years. Earlier performance, serious illness and employment prospects mattered. The court awarded €48,863.14 gross, equal to 75 percent of the full transition payment of €65,150.85 gross.
For a small employer, the conduct question, the dismissal question and the payment question are connected, but they are not identical. Legal work, management time, IT investigation, replacement capacity and privacy assessment can add pressure after the immediate incident has passed.
Control before confrontation
Return to the payroll business. The strongest first response would not be an angry telephone call. It would be a calm effort to establish remaining access, preserve relevant records and identify the information involved.
The founder, adviser and IT provider should know who acts when someone is suspended, who preserves logs and who records the employment decision. Employment terms can define boundaries around confidential information, private devices and forwarding. Daily access rights should reflect actual roles.
This does not require a thick manual. A short, tested sequence is often worth more than pages of policy nobody follows. Management, HR and IT must not each assume that another person has secured the business.
The Rotterdam case involved serious conduct and a clear access restriction. Its practical lesson is narrower and more useful than a blanket rule on private email. Sending someone home does not close the digital door. When trust fails, the quality of the employer’s next steps can shape both the legal outcome and the final bill.
Need a clear procedure for suspension and digital access? We can help set out the next steps
The data, sourcing, and analysis behind this article were conducted by Linda Pavan. AI was not used to identify sources, build the factual basis, or produce the analytical judgment contained here. AI was used only as a drafting aid. The final English text was personally reviewed, edited, and approved by Linda Pavan before publication.
