On 25 November, and in response to a persistent problem facing the lower judiciary to comprehensively understand the criteria used to characterize the existence or not of a co-employment situation, the Court of Cassation handed down a ruling that goes back on its previous jurisprudence and now focuses only on a single criterion, namely ‘the ongoing involvement of the parent company in the employing company’s economic and social management, leading to the total loss of the employing company’s autonomy to act.’ The notion of co-employment, although rarely qualified by judges, and despite litigation that although currently contained is nonetheless growing, does make it possible to condemn a parent company to pay damages to employees for the loss of their employment whenever the parent has excessively interfered in the economic and social management of the employer.
Co-employment essentially aims to ascribe responsibility for the effects of decisions to the real decision-makers, and in particular to extend the scope of a debt payment, so for instance, making a parent company pay damages for unfair dismissal when a subsidiary company can no longer pay such ‘debts’, especially in corporate liquidation situations.
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