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In a judgment of 11 December 2018, the Court of Appeal of Arnhem-Leeuwarden (“the Appeal Court”) ruled that a journalist had not acted unlawfully by taping and sharing a recording or the contents of a phone call in which a municipal council member (“the council member”) provided him with confidential information. As a party chairman, the council member was a member of a committee responsible for the appointment of an acting mayor. While the appointment procedure was underway, and days before the official announcement of the nominee, the council member spoke over the phone about, inter alia, that...

In a letter sent to Dutch parliament on 13 December 2018, the Dutch Minister of the Interior and Kingdom Relations set out the Dutch governmental plans to tackle disinformation in the build-up to the European and national provincial elections of May and March 2019, respectively. The letter, in part, aims to implement motions that were adopted earlier in this context by the Dutch parliament. The Minister opens the letter by reiterating that the spread of disinformation with the goal to undermine and destabilize the democratic order poses a real threat. The government’s efforts are aimed at countering...

In a judgement of March 14 2018, but published on October 31 2018, the District Court of Amsterdam ruled that a publisher of a Dutch free national newspaper had acted unlawfully by publishing multiple columns — both in print and on its website — in which a columnist accused a well-known Dutch comedian of sexual harassment and rape. The comedian had requested this declaratory decision, and claimed damages for the violation of his right to honor, good name, and reputation. In interim injunction proceedings, lodged by the comedian in 2015, the Court had already ordered the publisher to remove two...

On 1 October 2018, the District Court of The Hague resolved a case concerning the question of whether two children - aged four and two - could be included in the video logs and messages (together: content) that their mother, a professional online influencer, had uploaded to and posted on her social media accounts. After considering the children’s best interests (Article 1:253a Dutch Civil Code (Burgerlijk Wetboek; DCC)), the Court ruled in the negative. Consequently, the Court ordered the mother to permanently delete all previously uploaded and posted content concerning the children. Moreover,...

On 5 September 2018, the District Court of The Hague delivered its judgment in a class action lawsuit filed by several film producers against the Dutch State. The Court ruled that the Dutch State was liable for statements made by a former State Secretary for Security and Justice about the permissibility of reproducing material from illegal sources. The statements concerned the question of whether, under the implementation in Dutch law of the Directive 2001/29/EC (Copyright Directive), reproductions from illegal sources fell within the scope of the private copying exemption. In short, this exemption...