international employment law firm alliance L&E Global
Germany

Germany: Obligation to assign different role in case of redundancy

According to a final court judgment the employer was obliged to employ the employee under unmodified working conditions as „Director Delivery Communication & Media Solutions Germany and General Western Europe at management level 3”.

The employer tried to prevent the legal enforcement of this judgment by filing an action to oppose enforcement. It argued that it was impossible to employ the employee in his original role as it had been eliminated due to group-wide changes in the organisational structure.

The Federal Labour Court ruled that the employer cannot argue that it is impossible to fulfil its obligations under the final judgment by arguing that the role has been eliminated.

According to the Court a failure to employ the employee would be a violation of the employer’s obligation to assign work to the employee so that the employer has to assign another contractual role to the employee instead.