Brussels, 26/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - A company which employs seamen living in an EU country, has its registered office in a non-EU state and its actual seat in a member state remains subject to the directive on the protection of employees in the event of the insolvency of their employer.
Such was the ruling handed down by the Court of Justice of the EU on Thursday 25 February in a case (C-292/14) that related to the interplay between the European directive on the protection of employees in the event of their employer's insolvency (80/987/EEC) and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, signed in Montego Bay in 1982, under which vessels have the nationality of the state whose flag they are entitled to fly.
The case at issue concerned seamen living in Greece who, in 1994, were engaged by a company whose registered office was located in Malta, which at that time was not a member of the EU. The seamen, whose employment contracts provided that they were to be governed by Maltese law, were to act as crew members on board a cruise ship that was owned by the above company and flew the Maltese flag. The charter of the vessel was ultimately cancelled and the seamen were not paid, with the result that they terminated their contracts in December 1994. Their employer was thereafter declared insolvent.
The Greek Council of State to which the case had been referred questioned the Court of Justice of the EU as to whether the seamen were eligible for the protection provided by the directive as regards their outstanding wage claims against the company. The Greek Employment Agency had refused that protection on the grounds that their case fell outside the scope of the directive and a Greek court had hereafter ruled that the Greek state was incorrect in not applying the directive.
The European judges finally ruled on the case, taking the view that the seamen do not fall outside the scope of the directive and that the guarantee covering their wage claims established by the directive must be provided irrespective of the maritime waters on which the vessel on which they worked ultimately sailed. The determining factor was that the seamen lived in an EU member state and that the company employing them had its actual seat in that same state. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)