Compensation

In recent weeks, the Cour de Cassation (French Supreme Court) has issued a number of rulings providing useful clarification on issues that are important to companies and their corporate officers.

These rulings concern inter alia the employer’s inexcusable fault, the signature of mutual separation agreements, harmful management practices and serious misconduct, and automatic compensation for breach of the employees’ right to rest.

The decision of the Paris Court of Appeals of June 2, 2020[1] provides valuable insights into the interplay, sometimes complex, between the various agreements entered into between a seller and a purchaser of shares, which agreements generally include a promise of sale agreement subject to conditions precedent, a set of representations and warranties (called garantie d’actif et de passif under French law) and the final purchase agreement that acknowledges the fulfillment of the conditions precedent and the proper completion of the sale transaction.

In the wake of the reform of the French Labor Code implemented by the so-called Macron Ordinances of September 22, 2017 and the reform of the apprenticeship and vocational training system introduced by the Law on professional future of September 5, 2018, the reform of unemployment insurance is an additional part of the “major transformation” of the French labor market that has been carried out by Emmanuel Macron over the past two years.