Abstract

A Spanish Supreme Court decision issued on 17 October 2016 (no. 848/2016) declares employee terminations void because the employer failed to respect the proper collective redundancy procedures based on the thresholds provided by EU Directive 98/59. The thresholds in the Directive refer to the number of employees at the establishment, whereas thresholds under Spanish law refer to the whole company. In implementing the Directive, Spanish law had aimed at being more favourable to employees, but this did not happen on the facts of this case.