Vers un épilogue dans l’affaire emblématique du CE européen de Verizon

Ireland’s High Court has handed down an important judgment in the case brought by Jean-Philippe Charpentier, Verizon EWC Secretary against Verizon’s management. The High Court overturned the decision pronounced on appeal by the Labour Court, which had found entirely in favour of the group’s management.
In November 2021, a number of EWC members acting in a personal capacity, including its secretary, took their case to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), which is the competent body for resolving collective labour disputes in Ireland [editor’s note: under Irish law, an EWC has no legal personality of its own, and therefore cannot take matters to court]. The complainants applied for the company’s management to be ordered to pay the costs they had incurred by taking part in a training course for EWC members, and also to pay certain expert legal costs incurred by the EWC.
The WRC ruled that the EWC had already benefitted from a training day organised by management, so the latter was not obliged to reimburse the costs incurred by the 4 members in attending a further seminar – especially given that management had notified them in advance that they would not pay these costs. As for the expert costs, the WRC drew a distinction between areas of expertise that, in its view, qualified for reimbursement, and those that did not (see decision) and concluded that management should pay 50% of the eligible costs. However, on appeal, on 27 August 2024, the Labour Court handed down two decisions: one confirming that the training costs did not have to be reimbursed, and the other dismissing the workforce representatives’ application for expert costs to be refunded. In fact the Labour Court overturned the WRC’s decision, holding that the employees’ representative was not entitled to act (decision TID241). As a last resort, the employee representatives then decided to refer the case to the High Court.
In its judgment, which is the first one in this field handed down in Ireland, the High Court notes that the Labour Court had made several “errors of law”. With the exception of training costs, which the High Court confirms did not have to be paid by the employer, given that it had already presented an EWC training course that was deemed adequate, the High Court disputes all of the Labour Court’s conclusions. The Labour Court made errors of law by excluding a collective complaint filed by the EWC; by rejecting the EWC secretary’s capacity as an EWC representative; by not ruling on the matter of whether the expert costs were necessary and appropriate; and by not taking account of the application to have the legal fees of the EWC secretary’s barrister refunded, solely on the grounds that its appeal had been rejected.
In particular, the High Court notes that “the EWC, having no separate legal personality or independent financial resources, could only proceed with expert, including legal, advice and assistance”. To ensure that EWC members’ rights could be properly exercised, “the Labour Court should have considered whether it could, or should, permit an EWC or an employee to seek agreement from central management to reimburse all or some of the legal expenses associated with the claim on the basis that those expenses were necessary to satisfy the requirement of s. 17(1A) [editor’s note: of the law transposing the European Works Council directive into Irish law] that an EWC member or employee representative had the means required to apply the rights conferred by the Directive.”
Looking beyond the Verizon case, this landmark case has made a significant contribution to the adoption of the revised European Works Council directive, which plans to abolish the legal restriction preventing an EWC from taking a matter to court, notably in Ireland, where any dispute must be instigated by individuals acting in a personal capacity, at their own expense – a situation that represents a practical obstacle to challenging any decisions made by management.