The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on Thursday 14 May that an E101 (now A1) certificate provided by a posted worker is binding on the courts of the host Member State only in matters of social security and not in matters of labour law (Case C-17/19).
Such certificates shall be binding on the courts of the host Member State only in so far as they attest that the worker concerned is subject to the social security legislation of the home Member State. “Those certificates therefore have no binding effect with regard to obligations imposed by national law in matters other than social security”, the Court held.
The CJEU was answering a question put by the French Court of Cassation on the legislation applicable in the presence of fraudulent employment certificates in the context of posting workers.
The dispute originally concerned criminal proceedings against Bouygues Travaux Publics, Welbond Armatures and Elco Construct Bucarest for having used, between 2008 and 2012, the services of hidden workers, illegal lending of labour and concealed labour in connection with the construction of a nuclear reactor in Flamanville.
After being censured in the first instance jurisdiction and then on appeal, the three companies, in support of their appeal to the French Court of Cassation, argued that the Court of Appeal had failed to take into account the effects associated with the E101 certificates, prompting the Court of Cassation to refer the matter to the CJEU in order to determine whether the certificates are binding on the national courts where the work is carried out, as well as for labour law, in addition to the social security scheme, given that the dispute concerns not only declarations relating to wages and social security contributions, but also nominal reporting prior to hiring employees.
See judgment delivered: https://bit.ly/2Z1pz9Z (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)