Internal investigation: what an employee can demand to see

An employee may ask for the data the employer holds about them. That does not mean the whole internal investigation report. The Swiss Federal Supreme Court decided this on 16 June 2026 in judgment 4A_504/2025.

The case

A professor at a university institute in Geneva asked, on 22 November 2022, for a copy of a climate audit of his department. The report, dated 15 September 2022, had been written by an external expert. The institute refused. It said the audit was not an investigation opened against the professor, and that the document contained data about other people.

The professor went to court to obtain access. The labour chamber of the Geneva Court of Justice limited that access. The Federal Supreme Court dismisses the appeal.

During the case, the report stays out of the file

The proceedings were about the right of access itself. Handing over the report as part of the case file, even in a redacted version, would have decided the merits in advance. The court therefore removed the document from the file the professor could consult (consideration 3.2).

Only data that identifies him

Article 328b of the Code of Obligations refers to the Federal Act on Data Protection for an employer's processing of employee data. Article 25 FADP gives a right of access. That right covers personal data: information about an identified or identifiable person (art. 5 let. a FADP).

In the report's synthesis, the professor receives the passages that concern him: his conduct where he is named, the effect of tensions with a colleague, the passage denying that a professor was dysfunctional, and the possible extension of his status. He also receives the conclusion. Because he was told the purpose of the processing, he is entitled to know whether the investigator drew consequences for the climate in the department.

He does not receive paragraphs about "professors" or "some professors". He is not identifiable there. Access to the conclusion does not open the rest of the synthesis (consideration 4.3.3).

Colleagues' statements stay confidential

The parts of the report that record the interviews are not disclosed to him. Blacking out names would not be enough. The department had about fifteen people. Reading those parts, the professor could in all likelihood have worked out who spoke and what they said.

Their interest in confidentiality outweighs his interest in knowing the opinions expressed about him, and any effect those opinions may have had on the non-renewal of his contract. Article 26 FADP allows this restriction. It is proportionate (consideration 4.3.2).

What the judgment does not decide

It does not remove the right of access. Passages that identify the employee must in principle be communicated. A refusal is justified only where a third party's interest prevails, and the restriction must stay as narrow as possible. Where anonymisation really protects third parties, that is the measure to use. Here, it would not have protected the people who were interviewed.

The judgment also does not say that every internal investigation report may be withheld. It decides a climate audit in a small department, where colleagues' statements and the claimant's data were intertwined.

Sources

Swiss Federal Supreme Court, judgment 4A_504/2025 of 16 June 2026, First Civil Law Court, appeal against the labour chamber of the Geneva Court of Justice of 1 September 2025. Article 328b of the Code of Obligations and articles 5, 25 and 26 of the Federal Act on Data Protection.