Arnhem company loses court battle over anonymous Glassdoor reviews

Innova Market Insights, an international market research agency headquartered in Arnhem, unsuccessfully took a former employee to court in an attempt to discover the identities of employees who posted negative reviews about the company on the recruitment site Glassdoor. The court in Gelderland rejected his demands in September.

It all started in August 2021, when several negative reviews about Innova were posted on Glassdoor, a site allowing employees to anonymously review their employers. These included comments such as "Terrible place to work" and "Toxic company culture, stay away!" The company suspected a manager and a former colleague to be the authors of these anonymous reviews after it had discovered “disrespectful” internal messages between the two.

In September 2021, the company threatened the manager with a 25,000 euros fine for breaching his confidentiality agreement, with the promise that if the reviews were removed, the fine would be waived. However, the manager denied any association with the reviews and resigned in October 2021. He then joined a company that was a client of Innova.

Innova persisted in its efforts to uncover the identities of anonymous reviewers, alleging they breached confidentiality and posted unlawful, inaccurate reviews, which supposedly harmed the company. The company asked Glassdoor to remove the reviews and disclose the authors, however, the platform refused, upholding the principle that employees should be able to review employers without fearing repercussions.

To prove his own innocence, the former discovered the identities of the reviewers, but he promised them not to reveal their names. Innova decided then to take him to court. In addition to the transfer of emails that would reveal the identity of the reviewers, the company stated that the man breached his non-solicitation clause by joining a client's firm. The company demanded he resign from his new role and pay a fine of 75,000 euros.

The Gelderland court rejected these demands in July 2022. Innova appealed this decision, but a ruling from the Arnhem-Leeuwarden court published by the end of September 2023 revealed that the company lost the appeal as well.

The Arnhem-Leeuwarden court ruled that the manager did not have to hand over the emails or pay any fine. Moreover, the non-solicitation clause, which primarily concerns “business contacts,” was deemed inapplicable in this context, as it did not breach the relationship clause between the company and its client.

Bernard Cornelissen, the legal representative of the former manager, expressed satisfaction with the court's decision. He criticized Innova's tactics, particularly the 75,000 euro fine, as being a form of "pure blackmail.”

Innova refrained from commenting on the matter.