WEBINAR RECAP
A British Court decided that a UK-headquartered company not only must run a European Workers Council (EWC) under European law, but also a parallel one under UK law as a result of Brexit. The decision could have significant impact to multinational companies as the same law could require the companies to set up a separate EWC in the UK even though they moved it out previously.
On a membership call this week, HR Policy Global and BEERG’s Tom Hayes discussed the recent easyJet European Works Council (EWC) decision from the UK’s Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) with David Hopper from the London law firm, Lewis Silkin. The EAT decided that easyJet, a UK-headquartered company, had an obligation not only to run an EWC under European law, but also to run a parallel one under UK law. This resulted from a change in UK law after Brexit, with the government pledging that workers’ rights would not be reduced because of Brexit. The EU Commission had made it clear that Brexit meant that UK workers would be outside the scope of EWCs and the change in the UK law was an attempt by the government to find a way around that. However how this could be made to work in practice was unclear as EU Member State governments were under no obligation to assist in the setting up of “UK EWCs”.
While the easyJet decision only applied to UK headquartered companies, in another case before the courts, HSBC, it was argued that the law should apply to any company which had an EWC under UK law before Brexit, even if that EWC had now been moved to an EU jurisdiction. Were the courts to decide in HSBC in line with easyJet, then U.S.-headquartered companies which had had their EWCs in the UK could be obliged to set up a second EWC under UK law, though without that law being enforceable outside the UK. An appeal about the HSBC case will be heard by the Employment Appeal Tribunal at some point in 2023.
The easyJet decision is now under appeal. There will be a full discussion on EWC law at the next BEERG Network meeting in Brussels on February 1 and 2. Global members can register here.
