Insights

The European Court of Justice, with judgment in Case 596/2012 of February 13, 2014, stated the illegitimacy of the Italian legislation on collective dismissals (Law 223/1991) with reference to the exclusion of executives from the procedure.

The Article 1, paragraph 135 of the Stability Law 2014, provides that - from 1 January 2014 - the employer who requalifies a fixed term employment contract into an open ended one gets back by INPS the additional contribution “Aspi” (the Social Insurance for Employment).

Fines against illegal labor provided for in the Decree called “Destinazione Italia” (Law Decree n. 145/2013).

The so called “Rito Fornero” (the new proceeding provided for by Law 92/2012) ends up before the Constitutional Court. The IX section of the Court of Milan stated as significant the lawfulness issue regarding the lack of an abstinence obligation for the judge who has to decide on the challenge, after having already judged the summary stage of the trial on the lawfulness of the dismissal.

INPS, with note no. 1653 of January 29, 2014, clarified that employers interested in providing incentives to leave to employees near to retirement, as provided by Fornero Reform, have to submit the relevant request online through the company's electronic file, selecting in the voice "object" the name "Exodus employees near to retirement", also delivering the form SC/77 to the NPS office competent for the social security contributions.

The article 14 of Law Decree "destination Italy", into force since 24 December 2013, has heavily increased the penalties for undeclared and irregular employment and the violations of rules on daily and weekly rests and working time.

Court of Cassation, with sentence dated November 5, 2013 and filed on January 17, 2014, stated that severance payment accrued by the employee during the ordinary layoff intervention has a social security nature, and not a retributive one.

Court of Rome, with sentence of January 9, 2014, stated that fixed-term staff leasing is lawful “against any justification, even having not temporary character, regarding the company activity”.