Official Journal of the European Union

C series

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C/2025/1633

(Case C-907/24, Orefice Generators)

(C/2025/1633)

Language of the case: Italian

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Appellant: Orefice Generators Srl

Respondents: MZ, AV, VR, AL, RI, VO, PA, MG

Questions referred

For the purposes of point (a) of the first subparagraph of Article 1(1) of Directive 98/59/EC (1) of 20 July 1998, as amended by Directive (EU) 2015/1794, (2) must account be taken of ‘indirect redundancies’, that is to say, terminations of the employment relationship which have arisen and/or are foreseeable, are the result of an act of will on the part of the worker and/or his or her conduct, capable of leading to the termination of the relationship in causal correlation with the intention of the employer to make and/or unilaterally impose a substantial, non-transitory and unfavourable amendment to a fundamental element of the employment relationship, and are not related to the individual worker concerned?

Is the concept of ‘indirect redundancy’ for the purposes of point (a) of the first subparagraph of Article 1(1) of Directive 98/59/EC applicable to foreseeable conduct and/or acts of negotiation on the part of workers, capable of leading to the termination of the relationship, and causally linked to the change in their place of work, as a result of a decision by the employer to interrupt work in the original production unit, by providing for the simultaneous transfer of all workers, in a number deemed significant by the national implementing legislation, to production units hundreds of kilometres away, which necessarily require workers to move from the place where they have their social and emotional ties?

Are ‘indirect redundancies’ which are causally linked with a non-transitory, substantial unfavourable change in working conditions, attributable to a decision of the employer, and not related to the individual worker concerned, acts of negotiation and/or autonomous conduct capable of leading, even exclusively, to the attainment of the relevant redundancy threshold for the purposes of Directive 98/59/EC, and are they therefore distinct from the ‘equivalent’ and/or ‘assimilated’ measures referred to in the second subparagraph of Article 1(1) of the directive on collective redundancies, and therefore sufficient for the purposes of attaining the minimum numerical requirement laid down in point (a) of the first subparagraph of Article 1(1) of the directive, even in the absence of acts of negotiation by the employer which have the direct effect of terminating the employment contract?

Does the identification of the number of ‘redundancies’ referred to in point (a) of the first subparagraph of Article 1(1) of Directive 98/59/EC, as amended by Directive (EU) 2015/1794, allow Member States which adopt more favourable rules, limiting the number of redundancies relevant for the purposes of the threshold laid down in point (a) of the first subparagraph of Article 1(1) to five, to exclude indirect redundancies entirely from the calculation? Does EU law, and in particular Directive 98/59/EC, as amended by Directive (EU) 2015/1794, preclude legislation of a Member State which imposes the information and consultation procedure exclusively in the case of only five redundancies, consisting of unilateral acts of negotiation by the employer which have the effect of terminating the employment relationship, excluding, for the purposes of the scope of application, terminations, which have arisen and/or are foreseeable, as a result of acts of will on the part of the workers and/or their conduct, causally linked with an unfavourable and non-transitory change to a relevant element of the relationship decided upon by the employer, for reasons not related to the individuals concerned?

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Council Directive 98/59/EC of 20 July 1998 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to collective redundancies (OJ 1998 L 225, p. 16).

Directive (EU) 2015/1794 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 October 2015 amending Directives 2008/94/EC, 2009/38/EC and 2002/14/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, and Council Directives 98/59/EC and 2001/23/EC, as regards seafarers (OJ 2015 L 263, p. 1).

ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2025/1633/oj

ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)

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