An employee in the Netherlands found himself in a pretty rough spot after breaching his previous company’s contract and being faced with a €500,000 fine.
The man was found guilty of violating his non-competition, relationship, and confidentiality clause from his previous employment contract.
The fine he received amounts to about 131 times more than what he makes. That’s some Dutch bureaucracy for you!
Either way, the Dutch court found the fine to be reasonable because the man had clearly overstepped his boundaries, writes RTL Nieuws.
Old business associates
The employee had been working at the Leiden trading company West Coast Supply since 2017 and moved to the Amsterdam trading company Van Caem Klerks Group (VCKG) in the summer of 2020.
He had used sensitive company information from his previous employer and reached out to previous business associates for the Amsterdam competitor.
How did his previous company find out about all this? His previous boss accidentally received the messages proving the man was approaching the associates in favour of their competitor. Whoops? 😬
Why half a million?
While the employee’s previous contract wields a maximum of one million euros in fines, the judge found it reasonable to have him pay half that amount. Still, €500,000 is no small change for someone who earns €3,800 per month, but the seriousness of the breach justifies the fine, according to the judge.
Also, the employee didn’t let his being caught stop him. He continued to work for the competitor under a pseudonym via a self-employed construction.
However, Van Caem, the competitor company, promised to pay the fines for the man. So, it’s possible that he can still make it out of this situation completely unharmed.
Yay, we guess?
What do you think about this man’s case? Tell us in the comments below!
