Labour law – Page 3 – German criminal defense Lawyer Ferner

“Who owns the customer data?” – a question that is not as modern as it seems at first glance. However, it can be seen that the question has become massively more acute in this day and age.

Where once there might have been a customer file on the desk or recorded in a central registry, today there are immediate contacts in personal networks such as LinkedIn and data storage on smartphones. Theoretically, it is conceivable that an employee or subcontractor could end the business relationship overnight – and have access to all important customer data without entering the office again.

A problem that is still underestimated – especially also in terms of criminal law, as our everyday life shows. Because increasingly, employees are confronted with the accusation of having “stolen” customer data.

Posts at our German-language blog on the betrayal of secrets by employees.

The Federal Labor Court (9 AZR 187/22 and 9 AZR 260/21) once again dealt with an agreement between employee and employer on training costs. The problem regularly lies in the fact that an employer finances further training for an employee, but the employee then quits and uses the qualification acquired at the employer’s expense for another job.

Against this background, repayment clauses have developed in the event of termination, but these are regularly subject to legal review. And here, too, it is possible for courts to review the content – so that the written word alone is not decisive. In the present case, the employer had no claim against the employee for repayment of the training costs under the relevant clause of the training contract. This was because the provision did not stand up to a review of its content and was therefore invalid.