The Public Prosecution Service in Belgium has recommended a fine of €24.4 million against the Belgian branch of PostNL, reports the NLTimes. The prosecutor alleged that two units within the company, PostNL Cargo and PostNL Packages, have used staff from a third party in an unlawful way. Employees of other companies were called upon, but PostNL had the most authority over them. Depots owned by PostNL Belgium were raided in connection with Belgian authorities' investigation into the company's alleged missteps. The CEO there, Rudy van Rillaer, was briefly taken into custody after the raids.

PostNL, formerly TNT N.V., is a mail, parcel and e-commerce corporation with operations in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the UK. It provides universal delivery in the Netherlands, and is publicly listed on Euronext Amsterdam. The company was previosuly fined nearly €300,000 in the Netherlands in 2021 because subcontractors were using illegal labour.

Central to the prosecutor's case is the deal that PostNL Cargo and PostNL Pakketten made with 220 subcontractors. Belgian law has strict rules regarding these service agreements, which need to be clearly written with very detailed instructions that a staffing agency can give to the relevant workers. These agreements were not sufficient to be regarded as valid under Belgian law, according to the prosecutor, who said that PostNL was operating illegally, making repeated reference to Article 31 of the country's Uitzendarbeidswet, the law governing temporary employment.

PostNL responded by saying that the subcontractors with whom they cooperate run their businesses independently and direct their employees themselves. The company disagreed with the prosecutor's accusations. "We are a company that takes good care of the people who work with or for us,” PostNL stated.

The prosecutor maintained that PostNL had control over the subcontractor's employees, and not over the subcontractors themselves. In this way, PostNL Belgium had a great deal of influence over the recruitment and selection of the drivers, a situation that even involved the parent company from the Netherlands. Furthermore, the prosecutor said that deciding on the suitability of staff is a job for the subcontractor with whom the employee has a labour contract, adding that PostNL also spoke to employees directly when services were not performed correctly rather than to the subcontractor.