On 19 November a decision handed down by the Paris Court of Appeal in a dispute that pitted Suez works councils against those of Engie and Veolia, in the wake of the Veolia acquisition of Engie’s 29.9% stake in Suez in October 2020, serves as a forceful reminder of the obligation to inform and consult employee representatives whenever a project is effectively and sufficiently ready to be accomplished. The decision asserts that the employer responsibility for informing and consulting employee representatives remains, even in cases where a decision involves third-party companies. Third party companies are therefore also accountable for complying with this requirement, by their having to provide the necessary information. As such, these third party companies may suffer consequences in so far as a judge can order a suspension of a corporate operation until such time that the information and consultation procedures have been completed. The court also ruled that the Suez representative bodies should have be involved from the moment the shares were sold, given that public statements from Veolia clearly intimated that this 29.9% acquisition was just a first step towards a full takeover bid that would in turn lead to a major industrial operation. The full corporate project thus appeared to be effectively and sufficiently complete for it to be submitted to the relevant employee bodies for their opinion.
Veolia and Engie had appealed the 09 October 2020 interim order by the Paris Court of Justice, which had instructed that the sale of Engie’s 29.9% stake in Suez to Veolia be suspended until the Suez employee representative bodies had been informed and consulted (c.f. article No. 12173). Veolia and Engie invoked the absence of any legal provision requiring a third party company, as part of a simple equity acquisition, to consult the employee representative bodies of the target company.
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