{"id":1742,"date":"2026-01-26T10:22:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T09:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/?p=1742"},"modified":"2026-04-08T12:32:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T10:32:44","slug":"european-court-of-justice-law-applicable-to-employment-contracts-in-the-event-of-a-change-in-the-place-of-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/2026\/01\/26\/european-court-of-justice-law-applicable-to-employment-contracts-in-the-event-of-a-change-in-the-place-of-work\/","title":{"rendered":"European Court of Justice: Law applicable to employment contracts in the event of a change in the place of work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In its judgment of 11th December 2025 (Case C-485\/24), the European Court of Justice provided an interpretation of the Rome Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations, with specific reference to transnational employment contracts.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue arises from a dispute over the challenge to a transport company's dismissal of a driver based in Luxembourg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The employment contract, signed in 2002, provided for the application of Luxembourg law and specified that the driver would perform transport operations in several European countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, from 2014 onwards, the employee began to carry out most of his work in France and therefore considered that French law should apply to his employment relationship, and in particular to his defence against the dismissal imposed by his employer. For this reason, the employee took his case directly to the French courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latter ruled that the French mandatory dismissal rules applied and found the dismissal unlawful. The company then appealed the decision to the French Supreme Court, which suspended the proceedings and referred the matter to the ECJ to determine the applicable law in cases where the habitual place of work is changed during the employment relationship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The matter submitted to the Court concerns the interpretation of Article 6 of the so-called Rome Convention \u2013 later incorporated and replaced by EC Regulation no. 593\/2008 \u2013 which, in establishing the criteria for determining the law applicable to employment contracts, introduces a special regime intended to protect the employee, as the weaker contracting party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In particular, Article 6 of the Rome Convention, to determine the applicable law in the absence of a choice by the parties, provides for two concurring connecting factors: that of the country in which employees habitually performed their work, or the law of the country in which the employer's registered office is located.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the ECJ, the above criteria do not apply when it appears that the employment contract has particularly close links with a country other than the one in which the relationship arose, in which case the law of the latter country applies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The applicable law must therefore be determined by assessing the actual development of the employment relationship, taking into account factors such as the place where the workers perform the substantial part of their work, the country where they pay taxes and social security contributions, the applicable social security system and the last habitual place of work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is therefore for the national court to determine, based on factual elements, whether the contract has a 'closer connection' with the State in which the work was mainly organised and carried out in its final phase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, the ECJ states that when the habitual place of work is permanently transferred to another Member State, this circumstance must be assessed under the closest connection criterion, leaving it to the national court to make an overall factual assessment of the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In its judgment of 11th December 2025 (Case C-485\/24), the European Court of Justice provided an interpretation of the Rome Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations, with specific reference to transnational employment contracts. The issue arises from a dispute over the challenge to a transport company's dismissal of a driver based in Luxembourg. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,108],"tags":[154,169],"class_list":["post-1742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dismissal","category-transnational-employment-relationships","tag-dismissal","tag-employment-relationship"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1742"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1775,"href":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1742\/revisions\/1775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.osservatorio-labour.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}