Clifford Chance

Transfer of undertaking: excluded employees have 60 days to file a claim in relation to their (non-)transfer

12 September 2017

The Court of Appeal of Palermo, in its Ruling No. 993 of 28 December 2016, held that the limitation period of 60 days is to be deemed applicable to claims from employees who, having been excluded from a transferred undertaking, seek to obtain the transfer of their employment relationship, as part of the undertaking, to the transferee.

This ruling means that the transferee will be protected from the uncertainty caused by claims commenced years after the transfer.

The limitation period runs from the date of transfer of the undertaking: there is also a practical need to make the workers excluded from the transfer aware of this date .

An appropriate solution here could be to notify those employees who are excluded from the transfer of the transfer date, especially in (potentially) controversial cases or where the scope of the transfer is difficult to identify.

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