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On 16 June 2025, the District Court of Central Netherlands issued a preliminary relief ruling, holding that the Dutch public broadcaster AVROTROS does not have to grant the Dutch Media Authority (Commissariaat voor de Media) access to two confidential research reports concerning workplace safety. The request for preliminary relief was brought by AVROTROS following the Media Authority’s request to inspect the reports regarding social safety and governance within the organisation drawn up by external parties in 2023. These reports formed the basis for AVROTROS’s action plan, which...

 On 17 April 2025, the Rechtbank Amsterdam (District Court of Amsterdam) delivered a significant ruling on broadcast journalism reporting on serious allegations against commercial companies. Notably, the Court refused to order a “publication ban” against a well-known Dutch news programme reporting on serious fraud allegations against an employment agency, holding that such a journalistic programme must enjoy wide freedom of expression to address matters of public interest, even where the allegations would have very damaging consequences for the commercial company.   The...

On 15 April 2025, the Dutch Secretary of State for Legal Protection (Staatssecretaris Rechtsbescherming) submitted an important bill to the House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer), seeking to implement the 2024 EU Directive on protecting persons who engage in public participation from manifestly unfounded claims or abusive court proceedings (strategic lawsuits against public participation – SLAPPs), known as the Anti-SLAPP Directive (see IRIS 2024-3/5 and IRIS 2022-5/6). The purpose of the directive is to provide safeguards against SLAPPs, which are manifestly unfounded claims or abusive...

On 19 March 2025, the Rechtbank Den Haag (District Court of The Hague) delivered an important ruling on investigative journalism reporting on commercial companies. The Court refused an application to prevent further broadcast of an episode of a public broadcaster’s investigative programme on a Dutch-based company involved in the international oil industry, holding that such a commercial company must tolerate a “greater level of criticism” when it is the subject of “critical” investigative-journalism reporting. The case arose on 16 March 2023, when the investigative...

On 4 March 2025, the Dutch Media Authority (Commissariaat voor de Media) published the draft 2025 Policy Rule on the qualification of on-demand commercial media services (draft 2025 Policy Rule). It will replace the previous policy rule adopted in 2022 (2022 Policy Rule). Both the 2022 Policy Rule as well as the draft 2025 Policy Rule are based on the Dutch Media Act of 2008 (the Act), which was amended in 2020 in the course of the implementation of revised Directive 2010/13/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 March 2010 on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by...