Lithuania: New court practice in employee dismissal cases
Vilnius County Court rules on employer's right to check use of work resources made available to employee.
On 6.5.2010 Vilnius County Court ("the Court") ruled on the question of an employer's right to check how work resources made available to an employee are used. The Court ruled on this question after hearing a case calling into question the validity of dismissal of an employee. The Court examined the situation where an employer dismissed an employee from work due to gross breach of duty at work. The employee revealed information constituting a commercial secret of the employer company to a competitor company and used work resources made available by the employer to collect information for her own personal purposes. The Court ruled that an employer has a right to know for what purpose employees are using work resources made available to them and what they are doing during office hours. For this reason an employer is even entitled to check an employee‘s "Skype" conversations. The Court also affirmed that this does not create a basis to conclude that an employer is breaching a person‘s right to inviolability of their private life.
