Newsletter 2025 - 04
1 Office news
The “Herman Buyssens Tribute Book” (eds. S. Vandermeersch and T. Van de Calseyde) includes a contribution by Ludo Vermeulen entitled “The Social Inspection and the Rule of Law: A Difficult Marriage”. The book was published by LeA Uitgevers. Here you can find all information about the other contributions in the substantial book.
On April 19, 2025, Het Belang van Limburg published an opinion piece by Steven Renette: “Why your boss is not allowed to transfer you if you find love in the workplace”.
2 Jurisprudence – the multiplier
Correctional Court of Tongeren, April 10, 2025.
The court refers the “multiplier” in social criminal law (once again) to the Constitutional Court.
In a judgment dated 10 April 2025, the Tongeren Criminal Court submitted four preliminary questions to the Constitutional Court regarding the constitutionality of the so-called multiplication rule in social criminal law.
This multiplication rule – better known as the "multiplier" – means that, in the event of a conviction for most social criminal law violations, the criminal court is obligated to multiply the imposed fine by the number of employees involved. Even with the ceiling stipulated in Article 103 of the Social Criminal Code, which stipulates that the multiplied fine may not exceed one hundred times the maximum fine, this often leads to financial disasters in practice. For natural persons found guilty of a level 4 violation (e.g., a late Dimona notification), this ceiling currently stands at €5,600,000. For legal entities, this amounts to €57,600,000 – partly due to the application of the conversion mechanism in Article 41bis of the Criminal Code.
According to the legislator, the multiplier allows the penalty to be adjusted to the seriousness of the offenses and their consequences. The consequential damages for social violations are generally greater the more employees involved, and this may also be reflected in the penalty. Moreover, the number of employees is said to be an indicator of the company's financial capacity. The workforce, therefore, appears to be an indicator of a company's financial capacity if it is fined.
The multiplier has drawn considerable criticism over the years. Its mandatory application by criminal courts and its disproportionate consequences, in particular, have increasingly come under fire.
In its judgment, the Tongeren criminal court rejected four of the six questions suggested by the defense to the Constitutional Court. It is now up to the Constitutional Court to rule on these (just as it did three years ago on other aspects of the multiplier and also ruled it unconstitutional in judgment 84/2022).
Steven Renette, lawyer-partner
steven.renette@mploy.be
3 Jurisprudence – aggression towards examining physician: no urgent reason
Antwerp Labor Court, Hasselt division, April 1, 2025, unpublished
After several arguments and clashes with colleagues at work, the employee reported sick for three weeks. The employer sent a medical examiner to the employee's place of residence.
The employee did not appreciate this visit. He behaved aggressively towards the examining physician, making the inspection impossible. After the examining physician reported this incident to the employer, the employer dismissed him for urgent reasons.
The labor court found the employee's verbal abuse toward the examining physician proven. Furthermore, the court acknowledged that this aggressive behavior made the inspection impossible.
While these actions constitute misconduct, the court finds they are not such as to justify dismissal for cause. The court emphasizes that it takes into account the employee's specific circumstances. Besides the fact that the employee was overworked due to the difficult working conditions, his wife was suffering from a serious illness. These specific circumstances, of which the employer was aware, make dismissal for cause unjustified, according to the court.
Floor-Jan Claeys, lawyer
floorjan.claeys@mploy.be