On 26 June 2024, NRC published an article entitled “Bunq Employees Sneaked Peek at Customer Accounts: ‘It was too tempting’”. This article highlights that almost all employees of Bunq can view customer accounts and transactions. Several former employees stated that they had abused this option, for example by looking at accounts of friends, dates or colleagues.
Bunq believed the publication to be unlawful and brought summary proceedings. The bank specifically took offence with NRC’s quotes from an internal discussion between Bunq employees on the communication channel Slack. Bunq claimed, among other things, the deletion of the portions quoted from the Slack discussion and a rectification of the article.
In a judgment of 23 July 2024, all claims were rejected. The Court dwelled on the fact that the publication of NRC contributes to the public discussion (ground 4.3) and did not consider it decisive – given the fact that the Slack discussion contained no trade secrets or other confidential information – that NRC used internal data (ground 4.4.1). The Court also held that NRC had carried out an extensive investigation, had mentioned facts that added a nuance, and had complied with the principle of hearing both sides of the argument. NRC did quote somewhat selectively from the Slack discussion, but NRC’s conclusion that Bunq appears not to want to know whether its employees are taking advantage of the access can be justified in the opinion of the Court (ground 4.4.3).
Bunq also argued that NRC’s style is sensational and inappropriate, but the Court did not go along with this. The Court found that the article was written in an engrossing style and considered the following: “It is clear that with this writing style and presentation, NRC wants to attract and hold the reader’s attention. NRC is in principle free to do so. It can exaggerate or provoke to a certain extent and choose its own way of reporting.” (ground 4.6)
Because NRC deleted the user names of the employees in the Slack discussion at Bunq’s first request, and promised not to publish the names anew, Bunq no longer has an interest in its claim for the deletion of the names (ground 4.8). Regarding all other points, the Court also held that there is no ground for limiting NRC’s freedom of expression, and denied all claims.
NOS was represented in these proceedings by Jens van den Brink and Lotte Oranje.
