The Danish Supreme Court has ruled that a provision in a collective agreement allowing employers to pay reduced allowances for working in the evenings, on nights and at weekends to employees under the age of 25 in full-time education and working no more than 15 hours a week was not in conflict with the Danish Anti-Discrimination Act since it was justified by a legitimate aim.

If a collective agreement grants older employees a higher vacation claim solely because of their age, a younger employee is entitled to the same number of days of leave.

The UK Supreme Court has held that the mistreatment of two Nigerian employees based on their vulnerable immigration status, did not amount to direct or indirect discrimination. The question for the Court was whether the employees had been discriminated against on the basis of their nationality. The Court accepted that immigration status is a function of nationality, but that it is not the same thing.

A staffing agency rejected an application for an advertised job because the applicant refused to remove her hijab. The court of first instance saw no discrimination, the Court of Appeal did. The plaintiff was awarded €500 but had to bear her own legal expenses.

The Supreme Court of Lithuania recently affirmed that the courts have no competence to assess the merits of an employer’s decision to restructure and make staff redundant, as the decision was at the employer’s discretion to make.

A company had leased some employees from a temporary work agency between 2008 and 2012 to work alongside its own employees on a continuous basis. The collective bargaining agreement that the company was bound by restricted the use of temporary agency workers to situations in which the work could not be performed by the company’s own staff. The trade union brought an action before the Labour Court claiming that the company had used temporary agency workers continuously to a greater extent than permitted by the collective bargaining agreement and that the employers’ association, of which the company was a member, had breached its supervisory duty. In a preliminary ruling, the ECJ held that the Temporary Agency Work Directive (2008/104/EC) does not oblige national courts to refuse to apply national law containing prohibitions or restrictions, even if those restrictions were not justified. Having confirmed that national restrictions may be applied, the Labour Court imposed a compensatory fine of € 3,000 on the company and € 4,000 on the employers’ association.

Where an employee’s working time exceeds the 30 months prescribed by law, a fixed term contract will be converted into an indefinite term contract.

A recent decision by the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) found that the dismissal of an employee for putting “derogatory” comments on Facebook about a colleague was unfair.

During negotiations for a collective bargaining agreement, the employer stopped consulting the employee representatives because a sectorial collective bargaining agreement had entered into force that also applied to the employer. After this, the trade union requested an appointment with the employer on a specific date and proposed an agenda for the meeting, including consultation on the impact of the sectorial collective bargaining agreement on the employees. The employer refused to meet on the requested date. The trade union challenged this via the Labour Court. The first and second instance courts turned down the trade union’s claim and confirmed the employer had acted lawfully. The Curia (the Supreme Court) established that the employer had breached its obligation to consult – an obligation deriving from the Labour Code which implemented Directive 2002/14 establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees – but at the same time it refused to order the employer to proceed with the consultations, leaving the trade union without an effective remedy.

Temporary agency workers employed by a Polish agency and posted temporarily to France to work there under the direction of a French client are entitled to A1 certificates and, therefore, to remain governed by exclusively Polish social security legislation while working in France.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (‘EAT’) has upheld an Employment Tribunal’s (‘ET’s’) finding that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (‘ECHR’) was not engaged when an employer used private material obtained by the police during a criminal investigation as part of an internal disciplinary investigation into one of its employees. This material had been taken from the claimant’s phone by the police, who then provided it to the employer (stating that it could be used for the purposes of their investigation). The facts in this case were unusual. Whether or not an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in similar circumstances will depend on all the facts, including the source of the information, whether the employee has expressly objected to its use, and whether the relevant conduct took place in, or was brought into, the workplace.

A company’s unofficial practice of providing an extra amount on top of the statutory severance payable upon retirement is considered an acquired right which binds the new employer in the case of a transfer of the undertaking. This applies whether or not the transferee was aware of it.

Council Directive 94/45/EC (the ‘Directive’) determines the conditions for setting up a European Works Council or other means of providing information to employees in relation to employers that operate in more than one EU Member State. The aim of the Directive is to ensure employees are properly informed about their own employer and the company group operating in the EU, under their right to transnational information. In the case at hand, the courts needed to determine what conditions had to be met to set up a European Work Council and when a European Work Council would be established by operation of law.

The French state was held liable by the Administrative Court of Clermont-Ferrand for failing to transpose Article 7§1 of EU Directive 2003/88/EC on working time.

A supplementary tax on retirement income falls outside the scope of Directive 2000/78.

UK child benefits may be refused to unlawfully resident Member State nationals.

The questions referred to the ECJ in this particular case on the interpretation of Clause 6(1) of the Framework Agreement on parental leave (employers must “consider and respond to” employees’ requests for changes to their working patterns) are inadmissible.

National law that excludes civil servants’ pre-18 service for pension purposes is not age discriminatory.

A worker who was unable to take paid annual leave on account of sick leave retains his right to annual leave.

The replacement of civil servants’ pension rights by less valuable general pension rights is contrary Article 45 TFEU.

EU law does not give an employee on maternity a right to full pay while on leave.

The fact that a worker retires voluntarily does not deprive him of the right to payment in lieu of paid annual leave he was unable to use up on account of sickness.

Applying for a job for the purpose of claiming discrimination compensation after being turned down constitutes an abuse of right.

A company’s obligation to participate in the building industry’s Social Welfare Fund did not breach the company’s right to freedom of association, nor its right to protection of property.

The ECtHR found no violation of Article 14 of the Convention read together with Article 1 of Protocol 1, in the pension schemes applying to the Brigade of Gurkhas. Although Gurkha soldiers could be regarded as having been treated less favourably than other soldiers in the British army, any difference in treatment had been objectively and reasonably justified.