State ordered to pay indemnities to employees of Air Atlantis – publico

                 

                         
                     

                 

 
                         

The Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) decided on Wednesday that the Portuguese State should compensate about a hundred former employees of Air Atlantis, a former subsidiary of TAP which was dissolved for more than two decades. At issue is the misinterpretation of a concept set out in a European Directive by the Portuguese Supreme Court.

                     

                         The now judgment in Luxembourg, the European Court emphasizes that the Supreme, who in 2009 declared that the collective redundancy not vitiated by any illegality, was obliged to refer to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on the concept of “transfer establishment “and did not.

The Air Atlantis (EIA) was dissolved in 1993, which led to the collective dismissal of nearly a hundred workers, and the last TAP to conduct of the flights that company and the use of the equipment that the EIA used in its activities, including four aircraft, as well as office equipment and other movable property, and also hired some workers of the defunct company.

In 2009, following an appeal brought by the workers, the Supreme Court held that to be the establishment of transmission, not just the “simple pursuit” of activity, still necessary to check the maintenance of the identity of the establishment.

Some of the workers requested the Supreme Court to submit to the European court for a preliminary ruling, but the Supreme understood that there was significant doubt on the interpretation of the law that implied the preliminary ruling.

The Court considered now that the concept of “transfer of a” Community law covers the situation in question, so that “the Supreme Court was required to submit a request for a preliminary ruling for the interpretation of the concept of transfer of a business.”

“The Court recalls that, in a situation relating to the air transport sector, the transfer of equipment should be considered an essential factor in assessing the existence of a transfer of a business within the meaning of the Directive,” stressing that TAP He assumed even “the EIA’s position in lease agreements for aircraft and used them effectively, which proves that received elements indispensable to the pursuit of activities previously carried on by the AIA.”