In its decision of 9 April 2019 (ref. no.: 1 ABR 51/17), the German Federal Labor Court (BAG) took position on the right of the works council to request information from the employer according to Section 80 (2) of the German Works Constitution Act (BetrVG) and clarified what data protection restrictions such a request is subject to ...
The recent decision of the FOPH (FOPH, decision of 11.12.2018 - 1 ABR 13/17) gives additional grounds for further clarifying the practical question of to what extent the conduct of an employee survey is subject to worker participation by the works council. The Respondent - a parent company of a postal and logistics company - has been carrying out an annual Group-wide employee survey since 2007 using a standardized electronic questionnaire ...
Stuttgart Labor Court, April 30, 2019 – 4 BV 251/18 Warnings by which employers are reprimanding the exercise of office by works council members and threatening sanctions in accordance with Section 23 Works Constitution Act (warnings under works constitution law) may not be entered in the personnel files of works council members irrespective of their lawfulness ...
On April 8, 2020, the federal government adopted draft wording presented by the Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection for a draft bill to mitigate the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in event contract law in order to protect organizers of recreational events and operators of recreational facilities from considerable outflows of liquidity ...
Many companies are currently facing challenges in relation to the GDPR compliance of their video surveillance. Main issues in this respect are questions related to transparency requirements and information notices, the need for a data protection impact assessment as well as questions concerning retention requirements and retention periods. The German Federal Labor Court (BAG) has recently commented on the admissible storage duration of lawful video recordings ...
The Bavarian data protection supervisory authority has prepared a series of template documents and overviews, intended to help small companies with GDPR compliance. At first glance, these documents do indeed provide important support for small companies. These have to fulfil almost all obligations under the GDPR in a similar manner to medium-sized businesses and large corporations ...
On June 16, 2020 the German government released its Corona-Warn-App. There are some key points employers should be aware of concerning the app: NO OBLIGATION FOR EMPLOYEES TO USE THE APP ON THEIR PERSONAL SMARTPHONES An employer may be thinking about instructing its employees to install and use the Corona-Warn-App on their own devices to reduce the infection risk among its employees. That is not permitted ...
When employees post on Facebook while at work a conflict of interests arises: while the employee enjoys his leisure activity, the employer expects him to do his work uninterruptedly. In order to decide this conflict in his favour, the employer tends to react with employment law instruments, such as informal warnings, formal cautions and finally termination. German jurisdiction supports him in that ...
There are hardly any companies that do not use video surveillance systems (CCTV). Such systems record areas such as plant and work facilities or entrance areas. Oftentimes, the video images are not only displayed live on a monitor (“camera-to-monitor system”), but are also recorded automatically for a certain period of time ...
When it comes to the general transfer of data to third countries, even, for example, intra-group data transfers, recourse to US providers such as Microsoft (Office 365), Amazon (AWS), Google or Salesforce has been ill-fated since the ECJ ruling of July 16, 2020 (C-311/18 “Schrems II”) ...
GERMAN GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO INCREASE HURDLES FOR ACQUIRING GERMAN COMPANIES IN STRATEGICALLY IMPORTANT BUSINESS SECTORS On April 8, 2020, the German government adopted the draft bill of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs to amend the Foreign Trade and Payments Act (Außenwirtschaftsgesetz, AWG) ...
Federal Labor Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht; BAG) dated January 23, 2019 – 7 AZR 733/16 The unfounded limitation of the term of an employment contract, when an employee is employed again by the same employer, is only permissible when and if the application of the prohibition of unfounded fixed-term employment under Sec. 14(2) s. 2 Part-Time and Fixed-Term Employment Law (Teilzeit- und Befristungsgesetz; TzBfG) would be unreasonable for the parties ...
1. Background and Issue Labour representation at board level is a well-established part of the German corporate governance system. According to the German Co-Determination Act, a corporation with more than 2,000 employees has to establish a co-determined supervisory board composed of an equal number of shareholders’ and employees’ representatives ...
Ukraine is an EU candidate: Can we soon file patent applications for Ukraine at the European Patent Office? The European Council granted Ukraine EU candidate status on 23 June 2022. Will patents granted by the European Patent Office soon also apply in Ukraine? Not immediately, because on the one hand the candidate status legally creates neither rights nor obligations ...
BAG, judgment of Apr. 9, 2019 – 1 ABR 30/17 The transfer of an employee after the loss of job to the care of an in-house "Job Service and Placement" unit constitutes a transfer requiring consent within the meaning of Sec. 99 para. 1 BetrVG [German works constitution act]. If the selection procedure is carried out by the parties pursuant to a framework agreement, the instruction in the approval procedure also covers the selection procedure ...
It is here. The German Trade and Business Secrets Law (Geschäftsgeheimnisgesetz; GeschGehG) came into effect on April 26, 2019. Companies wishing to ensure protection of their business and trade secrets (such as customer, supplier and staff lists) in the future are required to take and document appropriate non-disclosure measures. This is effective immediately ...
During the ITMA Asia + CITMA 2012 in Shanghai (12th - 16th June 2012), an exhibition of worldwide fame for textile machinery manufacturers, the Belgian company Picanol NV has at a Shanghai court successfully applied for and enforced interim injunctions to stop design patent infringements against three Chinese manufacturers, Guangdong Fengkai Machinery Co., Ltd., Shandong Liaocheng Youjia Textile Machinery Co., Ltd. and Zhejiang Wanli Textile and Machinery Co ...
The works council may demand access to the employees’ payroll. Considerations under data protection law do not require anonymization or pseudonymization. Federal Labor Court, May 7, 2019 – 1 ABR 53/17 FACTS OF THE CASE A company granted the works council access to its electronic employee salary file – the payroll showing gross salaries, while stripping employees’ names from the list, thus in anonymized (more correctly: pseudonymized) form ...
LAG Schleswig-Holstein of February 26 2019 - 2 TaBV 14/18 The works council has no entitlement to the Provision or Inspection of Personnel Turnover Statistics or Appendices thereto, if the Employer only uses these for Statistical Purposes and for Internal Controlling. The personnel turnover statistics in this case are not an instrument for personnel planning ...
On March 28, 2020, the Act on Measures in Corporate, Cooperative, Association, Foundation, and Home Ownership Law to Combat the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic (COVID-19 Act) entered into effect. Among other things, the COVID-19 Act provides for substantial facilitations for stock corporations to hold general meetings. The most important innovation for use in practice is the possibility of holding general meetings entirely virtually, i.e ...
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is aimed at extensive harmonization of data protection in the EU, and will be applicable with effect from May 25, 2018. The GDPR will replace the current EU Data Protection Directive (Directive 95/46/EC) and will be directly applicable in all EU member states. The new regulations mean that German employers will also have to prepare for changes as regards the protection of employees’ personal data ...
BAG dated February 13, 2020 - 6 AZR 146/19 ("Air Berlin") In the context of collective redundancies, the term "company" is a legal term under European Union (EU) law and, with regard to the responsible employment agency, it focus particularly on the local effects of the intended dismissals. In the EU legal system, the term "company" is to be interpreted autonomously, uniformly and detached from the national understanding of the term ...
