The Supreme Court of Justice recently decided that the amount of time a practice has been observed in a collective bargaining agreement (in this case, four years) was not relevant to the acquisition of an entitlement. The entitlement in the case at hand was a public holiday on Shrove Tuesday.

On 2 June 2017, the Danish Eastern High Court decided that a statutory intervention by government was sufficient to enable derogation from the Working Time Directive (2003/88). The Directive can be derogated from by a collective agreement and although the statutory intervention was not a collective agreement, the High Court found that it was not inconsistent with that requirement.

The Supreme Court has given a clear explanation of how the test for indirect discrimination works, holding that it is not necessary to know why a particular group is disadvantaged by an employer’s policy in order to show indirect discrimination. This decision is not particularly helpful for employers as it makes it easier for individuals to make an indirect discrimination claim. However, the Supreme Court emphasised that it is always open to an employer to show that indirect discrimination is justified.

It was direct sex discrimination for a male employee who wished to take shared parental leave (SPL) to be entitled only to the minimum statutory pay where a female employee would have been entitled to full salary during an equivalent period of maternity leave, according to a first-instance decision from the Employment Tribunal (ET).

A recent decision by the Labour Court found that a policy requiring employees to speak English in the workplace constituted discrimination on grounds of national origin but was objectively justifiable.

The Lithuanian Supreme Court has found discrimination against an employee based on his trade union activities and ruled that there was no need for the burden of proof to shift to the employer.

Company agreement provisions granting a half-day of leave to female employees on International Women’s Day constitute lawful positive discrimination in favour of women.

Under the Latvian Labour Law an employee has the right to terminate an employment contract with immediate effect, i.e. without complying with the statutory notice period of one month, if the employee has ‘good cause’. Under the Labour Law, ‘good cause’ is any situation, which, based on considerations of morality and fairness, would not allow for the employment to continue. If an employee terminates their employment contract for good cause the employer must pay severance to the employee based on the employee’s years of service with the employer and amounting to between one and four months’ average earnings. If the employee gives notice for good cause, this terminates the employment contract with immediate effect.
Even if the employer disagrees with the reasons given in the termination notice, the employer cannot terminate the employment contract on any other ground and does not have the right to challenge the validity of the notice in court. However, if the employer suffers loss as a result of the immediate termination; its reputation is damaged based on the reasons given in the notice; or it has faced some other adverse consequence; the employer can bring a claim arguing that what is stated in the notice is untrue.

The period within which an employee can file a claim under the Regulations entitled “Contracts of Service for a Fixed Term” (which are Subsidiary Legislation under Maltese law) starts from when the employee became subject to less favourable treatment and not from when the employee could have known that the Regulations were being breached.

A recent decision by the Irish Supreme Court ruled that the blanket ban on asylum seekers working in Ireland was unconstitutional and had to be changed.

The Dutch Supreme Court decided that proceedings of a company against its managing director should be brought before the court in the country where the managing director is domiciled, in accordance with Article 20(1) of Council Regulation (EC) No 44/2001 of 22 December 2000 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters. This only applies if the managing director, in his capacity as director and manager, for a certain period of time, performed services for and under the direction of the company in return for remuneration, since in such a case it is presumed that he has an employment agreement as a worker.

In an international road transport case the Dutch Appellate Court held that working from a given place is not relevant when applying the Posted Workers Directive.

After the transfer of an undertaking (or part of one) the new employer cannot modify the transferred workers’ wages without their consent. This decision of the Belgian Supreme Court of 14 November 2016 leaves no leeway to the transferee to unilaterally substitute certain contractual elements with new ones, even if the new salary scheme is more advantageous overall.

This decision of the German Federal Labour Court (‘Bundesarbeitsgericht’, or ‘BAG’) concerns what happens to leave entitlement if the employment contract is amended in the middle of the year and the number of working days changes from a four-day week to a five-day week.

A ‘pre-pack’ agreement is outside the scope of Article 5 of the Acquired Rights Directive. In this situation, the protection of workers guaranteed by Articles 3 and 4 of that directive is maintained.

Relief workers who look after children in a family environment for SOS-Lapsikyläry, so relieving the children’s foster carers, do not fall within the scope of the exception provided for in Article 17(1) of the Working Time Directive.

The Acquired Rights Directive applies in a situation in which a municipal body was wound up and its activities transferred in part to another municipality and in part to a different body, and an employee on long term leave, whose employment contract was suspended and was therefore not working at the time, was still covered by the concept of ‘employee’ within the meaning of the Directive.

A provision which authorises an employer to make an on-call contract with a worker of under 25 years of age and to dismiss that worker as soon as he or she reaches 25, pursues a legitimate aim of employment and labour market policy and the means to attain that objective were appropriate and necessary.

The exclusion of employees of a group, employed outside of Germany, from the right to vote and stand as candidates in elections of employee representatives on the supervisory board of the German parent company, is not contrary to the free movement of workers.

Distinctions made for part-time workers in calculating occupational pension can be acceptable, as long as the calculations are based on legitimate objectives in accordance with law.

Marginal activities should be disregarded for the purposes of determining which national social security legislation applies.

A transferee must, when dismissing an employee over a year after a transfer of the undertaking, include the time he or she worked for the transferor in calculating the employee’s length of service, as this is relevant for determining the period of notice to which the employee is entitled.