#62025CJ0216EU Court Clarifies Employee Salary Rights After Business Transfers
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Unpaid salary claims can move to the new employer when a business is transferred, if those claims arise from employment contracts that existed at the transfer date. The ruling reinforces the core EU rule that employees should not lose workplace rights simply because their employer changes through a business transfer. The case matters for companies buying or taking over businesses, outsourcing operations, and employees whose workplace changes hands. Buyers may inherit wage debts from the former employer, and national rules cannot make that transfer harder in a way that weakens employee protection, such as by requiring the worker’s separate consent before the debt moves.
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Key Changes
- Confirms that unpaid salary obligations linked to existing employment contracts may transfer to the new employer in a business transfer
- Limits the use of national rules that require creditor consent if those rules weaken employee protection under EU law
- Reinforces the need for buyers and transferees to check outstanding employment debts before taking over a business
Obligations
What this law requires
EU law requires that, when an undertaking is transferred, obligations arising from employment contracts existing on the transfer date transfer to the transferee, including unpaid salary entitlements owed by the transferor before the transfer.
Member States may provide that the transferor and transferee are jointly and severally liable for employment-contract obligations transferred under Directive 2001/23/EC.
A national rule cannot make the transfer of unpaid salary claims to the transferee conditional on the employee creditor’s separate consent where that would weaken the employee protection required by Directive 2001/23/EC.