Stefan Sagel

Stefan specialises in employment law and employee benefits. He represents clients in individual and collective labour law matters.

Admitted to the Supreme Court Bar, an important focus of Stefan’s practice is litigation before the Dutch Supreme Court, where he has represented companies, individual employees, and trade unions in several landmark cases.

Stefan regularly works closely together with other De Brauw practice groups, particularly in the field of pensions.

He was appointed as Professor of Employment Law at Leiden University in 2013, where he obtained his PhD on ‘Summary dismissal for urgent cause’  in the same year. Stefan regularly publishes articles in professional journals and newspapers on different employment law issues, and lectures at events for fellow members of the judiciary, and on behalf of the Netherlands Bar Association.

In Chambers Europe 2019 Stefan was ranked as a “Star Individual” who enjoys an “unrivalled reputation” in the field of Supreme Court employment litigation and who is recognised as a “thought leader” amongst market commentators. He was also described as “technically brilliant, [and someone who] handles the most important cases and is easy to get along with.”

Stefan has won ILO’s Client Choice Award for the best Employment and Labour Lawyer in the Netherlands, twice.

Stefan’s recent work includes:

• advising and representing companies such as RELX, Schiphol, AkzoNobel, Shell and Philips in numerous collective and individual employment matters (including transfer of undertakings, collective dismissals, collective bargaining, industrial action, co-determination, as well as unilateral amendment of employee benefits).
• Supreme Court proceedings in which it was held that in case of a partial termination of an employment agreement (by mutual consent), the employee is also entitled to partially receive a statutory severance payment.
• Supreme Court proceedings which determined that equitable compensation in case of wrongful termination should not be seen and calculated as punitive damages.
• Supreme Court proceedings on behalf of Shell in which the scope of the statutory obligation to reinstatement (“herplaatsingsplicht“) was defined.
• Summary relief proceedings on behalf of Telegraaf Media Group against an individual works council that opposed the introduction of a joint works council for the whole group of companies of TMG.