An Amazon manager fired for internal chats. The Supreme Court clarifies the limits of company controls and access to employee messages. A crucial turning point.
The news, reported by Brocardishook up the world of work: An Amazon human resources executive was fired after the company looked into his internal conversations. This affair, far from isolated, led the Court of Cassation to issue a historic sentence, n. 32283 of 11 December 2025, which clearly defines the boundaries within which an employer can access the company chats of its employees.
The specific case concerns a manager who used the internal messaging platform Chime. Following the report of a candidate who complained of unfair treatment in the selection process, Amazon decided to investigate further. From the chats it emerged that the manager had initially approved the hiring of a courier, but had then changed his mind, giving in to pressure from a colleague and openly violating company procedures. This behavior, deemed harmful to the fiduciary bondled to his immediate dismissal.
The manager’s appeal and the reasons of the Supreme Court
The manager’s appeal and the reasons of the Supreme Court.
The fired manager, not resigned to the decision, took his legal battle to the Court of Cassation, after an initial denial by the Court of Appeal of Turin. The fulcrum of his defense, supported by lawyers Livio Neri and Alberto Guarisio, centered on the alleged illegitimacy of the acquisition of the conversations. The main thesis was that such chats could contain messages of a private nature, the consultation of which would have violated the worker’s personal rights, especially if the messages dated back to a period before the emergence of a well-founded suspicion of wrongdoing.
The Supreme Court, however, firmly rejected this argument. The judges have established that company conversations can be acquired and used by the employer even “back in time”, as long as the purpose is to protect the company assets. This concept, the magistrates explain, is not limited to the mere material aspect of the company, but extends to its value immaterialincluding the protection of the entire organization and, implicitly, other employees. This gives rise to a picture in which corporate security and integrity prevail over the pure expectation of privacy in business communications.
Company chat as a work tool and defensive controls
Company chat: work tool and object of defensive checks.
The Supreme Court ruling is based on two fundamental pillars that redefine the relationship between company and employee in the digital age. The first principle concerns the very nature of the corporate chat: it is considered to all intents and purposes one work tool. Being provided by the company and functional to the performance of professional duties, the data and information that pass through it can be used “for all purposes”, including disciplinary ones. It is crucial, however, that employees have been previously and adequately informed about this possibility of control, thus ensuring compliance with the principles of transparency and correctness.
The second key aspect is the so-called “defensive checks”. The law allows the employer to exercise these controls to prevent or detect illicit conduct, based on concrete evidence relating to specific employees. These tools, which can also be technological in nature, represent a legitimate safeguard for the company against unfair or harmful conduct. In the case of the Amazon manager, the Court of Cassation highlighted that, given his position of high responsibility, the fiduciary bond was particularly intense. Any behavior that undermines their reliability can, therefore, justify dismissal, without this being considered aextreme reasonbut rather a direct consequence of the violation of that trust.
This ruling marks a significant precedent, delineating a clearer boundary between individual privacy and corporate protection needs in the context of professional communication tools. Employers and employees are now being called upon to raise awareness about the use of internal messaging platforms and the related legal implications.
