Polish Supreme Court rules that employees of subsidiary company should be treated equally

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The Polish Supreme Court has ruled that an employee who received a severance payment lower than that paid to employees in a parent company had been treated unfairly.

The case concerned two voluntary redundancy programmes, where an employee in a subsidiary company was offered a lower severance payment than that paid to employees under a similar programme at the parent company.  The two companies were closely linked in terms of organisational and financial structure and, crucially, it was the parent company that financed the severance payments made by the subsidiary.  In its ruling, the Supreme Court stated that the parent company had abused its position in the group structure and consequently the employee had the right to compare his situation to that of the employees of the parent company.  As such, the principle of equal treatment had been violated in relation to the employees of the subsidiary.

Resources

• Ruling of the Supreme Court of 18 September 2014, case file No. III PK 136/13

Further information

For further information, or to discuss any of the issues raised, please contact Roch Pałubicki on +48 61 856 04 14 at Soltysinski Kawecki & Szlezak. 

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