In September 2020, the subdistrict court ruled that de Volkskrant was allowed to terminate the contract with Peters. According to the court, the employment relationship was ‘seriously and permanently’ disrupted after an internal investigation by the newspaper into inappropriate behavior by Peters against female writers. The reviewer appealed that decision. The editor-in-chief of the newspaper suspended Peters in May 2020.
The subdistrict judge found that Peters had abused his position by sending private messages to female writers, including at night. According to de Volkskrant Peters violated the newspaper’s journalistic guidelines by contacting the authors, including before reviewing a book by them.
The court stated that as a result, Peters lost both his own reputation and that of de Volkskrant had been discredited. The guidelines prescribe that judgments must be formed independently in book reviews.
The court now also finds that Peters should have refrained from private messages to female writers, because they depend on his judgment as a ‘prominent literary critic’. The court finds it understandable that they were bothered by this and states that Peters underestimated the impact of his behaviour.
But the court finds neither that he abused his position as a critic nor that he violated journalistic integrity standards. Also, Peters would not have lied ‘willingly and knowingly’, when de Volkskrant confronted him with the accusations of female writers.
The investigation that the newspaper set up after signals that Peters made private contact with female writers, according to the court, fell short. The newspaper should also have had an external, independent investigation carried out. According to the court, its own investigation was more like a ‘fishing expedition’.
All in all, the court finds that de Volkskrant Peters should not have been fired, because the internal investigation did not provide sufficient grounds to conclude that trust had been lost. The ‘fair’ compensation that the newspaper has to pay 58-year-old Peters comes on top of a transition payment of more than 32 thousand euros awarded earlier and partly consists of the salary he has missed.
This is not the verdict we had hoped for, but it is good that the court has ruled that a return is not possible. de Volkskrant. “With this ruling, Arjan Peters’ reputation has been restored as well as possible,” said Peters’ lawyer.
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