Redundancy arrangement for Giskus rejected

February 05, 2009 6:20 AM

The Common Court of Justice of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba has rejected a petition of Jopie Giskus for reversal of the decision of the Court of Justice of 6 June 2006. It is a decision in which the Court of Justice did not decide in Giskus’ favor to obtain a contractual redundancy arrangement from his former employer Bonaire Management Group N.V. (BMG).

The appeal to the Supreme Court instituted against this decision was rejected by the Supreme Court on 21 September 2007. Giskus brings forward as a ground for reversal that the Court of Justice assumed that BMG would comply with the contractual redundancy arrangement, however, that BMG is not willing to do so and was not willing to do so at the time, as well as that BMG withheld this at the time and by doing so misled the Court of Justice, which was decisive for the outcome of the proceedings before the Court of Justice.

According to the Court of Justice, Giskus’ argument is not valid. The Court of Justice recognized on 6 June 2006 that BMG principally argued that the employment contract, including the redundancy arrangement, is null and void.
Consequently, the Court of Justice understood that BMG only wanted conditional dissolution of the employment contract, notably for the event that the employment contract is not null and void. The Court of Justice also held that the question whether the employment contract is null and void could not be answered in the dissolution proceedings, nor could the question be answered whether Giskus is entitled to any compensation, and if so, what compensation, if the employment contract is null and void. A claim for compliance with the redundancy arrangement could also not be discussed in the dissolution proceedings. That the Court of Justice assumed that the redundancy arrangement will be complied with was still under the assumption that the employment contract is not null and void.

According to the Court of Justice, it follows from the above that Giskus’ petition has to be rejected. Giskus has to pay the costs of 3,400 guilders incurred by BMG.

(Source: Local Newspaper “Antilliaans Dagblad”)

January 30, 2009

Molly Steward of VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne represented BMG in this case.