Under French law, the conciliation agreement – before the Employment Tribunal – constitutes a waiver by the parties of all claims relating to the termination of the employment contract (French Labour Code, art. L.1235-1). The parties often include in such agreements a waiver of all claims relating to both (i.) the termination of the employment […]
In a recent case before the French Supreme Court, an employee had fallen and hurt himself while removing snow from his car in an outdoor parking space in front of his home. The issues raised in this case were the following: Did these factors prevent the employee’s accident from being classified as a work-related accident?
Facts Between 1996 and 2010, an employee was employed by a company as a part-time sales representative, under a series of fixed-term contracts. Some contracts were separated by periods when the employee did not work for the company. In 2013, the employee took her case to the Employment Tribunal. She claimed that her part-time fixed-term
Staff representative employees have a special protective status which prohibits the employer from taking discriminatory measures against them. The protective status of employee representatives also requires the employer to follow a special procedure before transferring or terminating their employment contract. This procedure requires obtaining the authorization of the labor inspector before notifying the employee of
Protection of employee representatives Read More »
As explained in our previous post, it is common practice for employers to award target-based bonuses to their employees. Eligibility to such a variable remuneration needs to be assessed according to a specific period of time, which can be a week, a month or a year. But how can one deal with employees who join
Managing your incentive schemes (3): How to deal with joiners and leavers? Read More »
As mentioned in our previous blog post on incentive schemes in France, it is settled case law that the objectives must be set at the beginning of every year. Otherwise, employees could be entitled to the payment of a full bonus and may even bring claims for constructive dismissal. This being said, when there is
Managing your incentive schemes (2): Adapting your objectives during the year Read More »
This article is the first in a series of articles about how to manage your incentive schemes. It is quite common for employers to award objectives-based bonuses to its employees, to get them more involved and motivated to perform according to expectations. The employees will be rewarded only if the objectives are met. For this
Managing your incentive scheme (1): Set your objectives Read More »
In France, like in other countries, employers are required to put in place measures to safeguard their employees against health and safety hazards (articles L.4121-1 onwards of the French Labour Code). The first measure to be taken by any company employing staff in France is to implement risk profiling and draft a risk assessment document
OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETY: FRENCH EMPLOYMENT LAW REQUIREMENTS Read More »
French employers are invited to facilitate cycling to work and have at their disposal several schemes aiming to financially encourage employees to use bikes to come to work. Legal requirement: reimbursement of the costs of renting a bike Under article L.3261-2 of the French Labour Code, employers have to reimburse their employees the costs of
CYCLING TO WORK: WHERE DOES FRANCE STAND? Read More »
With the arrival of Chat GPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot launched by OpenAI on November 30, 2022, many questioned the possibility of using this device to deal with legal issues. Indeed, you could ask Chat GPT to write a dismissal letter, by providing the AI with the name of your company and the name of
Don’t rely on Chat GPT to write your dismissal letter Read More »