Publication of fines by the Netherlands Labour Authority

When the Netherlands Labour Authority (NLA) an administrative fine for a violation of the Foreign Nationals Employment Act, this decision is almost always published on the website of the NLA

The name and address of the offender and the type of violation are listed on that website. It is also indicated whether proceedings are still pending. Finally, the offender can leave a response. Publication of the fine is only permitted two weeks after the fine has been imposed. This gives the offender time to ask the court to prohibit publication.

On 29 April 2026 the Council of State made an interesting ruling regarding this matter. The Council of State has ruled that publication is not permitted automatically as long as proceedings against the decision are still ongoing. In that case, the Netherlands Labour Authorities interest in making the information public weighs less heavily than the offender’s interest. Publication is irreversible. Even if the publication is removed from the website, the damage has already been done. This applies even if it turns out afterwards that the fine was unjustified!

The Council of State now states that if an offender requests the court to stop the publication until the proceedings against it have been concluded, this must in principle be granted. The judge will not consider the strength of the case for this purpose. The fact that an objection procedure or appeal procedure is pending against the imposed fine is sufficient.

Our lawyers can assist you with an objection or appeal procedure, and request a suspension of the publication on your behalf while that procedure is still ongoing.

Incidentally, the two-week period applies to all forms of publication in which the name of the offender is mentioned. Consequently, the Netherlands Labour Authority is also not permitted to cooperate on newspaper articles or television items, for example, before the two-week period has expired. In addition to these publications in which the name of the offender is mentioned, the Netherlands Labour Authority also frequently sends out press releases. These press releases are anonymous and therefore do not fall under the two-week time limit. In most cases, the court does not consider this unlawful, because the name of the offender is not mentioned. This is true even if it is easy to identify which offender is involved.

For further questions, please contact Pieter Krop