Amsterdam court dismisses Bunq claims in summary proceedings against NRC: Know more

A couple of weeks back, Bunq, an Amsterdam-based neobank initiated summary proceedings against NRC in response to an article written by Stijn Bronzwaer and Merijn Rengers.

The article highlighted allegations of Bunq employees secretly accessing customer bills.

According to former employees, they can view accounts without the employer intervening. They looked at colleagues’ salaries or spied on ex-lovers.

Additionally, Bunq’s founder & CEO was unhappy as the usernames of the participants in the conversations were not anonymised. 

Judge rejects Bunq’s claims

However, the judge dismissed all of Bunq’s claims against NRC.

In a statement, the Court of Amsterdam says, “NRC does not have to rectify an article about Bunq. This was decided by the interim relief judge. NRC wrote an article about Bunq employees who had looked into customer accounts for private purposes. Bunq had requested rectification, partly because it believed that NRC had wrongly quoted from internal communication. The interim relief judge has decided that the use of internal communication in this case is not unlawful.”

The court order stated that NRC was not obligated to rectify the article about Bunq, as ruled by the interim relief judge. The judge suggested that NRC could have conveyed the message without disclosing the names of the bunq employees.

“Today, the judge rejected all of Bunq’s claims against NRC. A victory for investigative journalism,” says Stijn Bronzwaer at NRC.

The judge also affirmed that the investigation into the account snooping was conducted appropriately and in adherence to the principles of adversarial proceedings.

“There are no factual inaccuracies in the document. Our use of internal documents to substantiate the facts is lawful. There is no question of a ‘sensational or inappropriate writing style’ as was suggested. Nothing needs to be rectified,” adds Bronzwaer.

In response to the verdict, Ali Niknam, founder & CEO at Bunq says, “Although our other claims have been rejected, this is a major victory for us – and hopefully for many others. After all, all employees deserve the freedom to share their thoughts in safety. Also in the digital world.”

Bunq ordered to pay the legal cost

However, Bunq has been ordered to pay the legal costs on the side of NRC, currently estimated at €1,795.00, along with statutory interest. 

Moreover, Bunq is required to cover the costs incurred after the judgment, estimated at €178.00 in attorney’s fees, with the possibility of an increase in fees if the judgment is served, along with the costs of service of the writ and statutory interest. 

Finally, the judge has declared these cost awards provisionally enforceable.