Brussels, 03/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - Worker information and consultation obligations as set out in Directive 98/59/EC on collective redundancies also apply to companies whose dissolution and liquidation are ordered as a result of a judicial decision on the grounds of insolvency, even when national legislation provides for the termination of employment contracts with immediate effect. Furthermore, until the legal personality of an establishment whose dissolution and winding up have been ordered has ceased to exist, such obligations must be fulfilled. Where it is still in place, the employer's obligations must be carried out by the management of the establishment in question, even with limited powers of management over that establishment, or by its liquidator, where that management has been taken over entirely by the liquidator.
Such were the conclusions reached by the ruling pronounced on 3 March by the EU Court of Justice in different joint affairs (C-235/10 to C-239/10), in consideration of two questions referred from the Luxembourg Court of Cassation for a preliminary ruling. The court in Luxembourg was called upon to rule in a matter of litigation between several workers and a Luxembourg credit establishment whose winding up and liquidation had been pronounced by the Luxembourg District Court and whose liquidators, named by the court, had cancelled the employees' contract following the bankruptcy, in compliance with Luxembourg labour law. Upon rejection of their request for immediate reintegration in first instance and appeal, the employees appealed to the higher instance.
The ruling in question therefore interprets this particular point of European legislation in favour of the employees, prevailing over national law for fulfilment of the obligation foreseen in Directive 94/59/EC that consultations be conducted not only on the possibility of preventing or reducing collective redundancies but also on the possibilities of attenuating the consequences through accompanying social measures (a change of category or reconversion of workers dismissed). (F.G./transl.jl)