The German Federal Leave Act (Bundesurlaubsgesetz) provides that employees forfeit the right to claim outstanding holiday entitlement at the end of the calendar year or at the end of a specific transfer period; in other words, all holiday must be granted and taken beforehand. Under previous case law, this did even apply in the event that the employer declined an employee’s holiday request even though the request was made in a timely manner.

The Court of Justice of the European Union, however, has taken a different approach. In its ruling of 6 November 2018, the court decided that the regulation according to which employees automatically lose annual leave if they have not submitted a holiday request is not in line with European law. Following this decision, the Federal Labour Court, the highest labour court in Germany, developed its current case law and stated in its ruling of 19 February 2019 that the employer is obliged “to ensure in a concrete and fully transparent manner that the employee is actually in a position to take their paid annual leave by formally requesting them – if necessary – to do so”.Continue Reading Loss of holiday entitlement – higher hurdles for employers if they want to ensure that employees lose the right to claim outstanding holiday entitlement at the end of the calendar year

An employee’s entitlement to holiday, and the pay he or she receives while taking holiday, has been a hot topic in the courts over the past few years.

In the case of Plumb v Duncan Print Group Ltd, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) has returned to the topic of an employee’s entitlement to holiday while on sick leave.

In 2009, the European Court of Justice (“ECJ”) in the cases of Stringer and Others v HM Revenue & Customs and Pereda v Madrid Movilidad established the following principles:

  • Workers who are off work on sick leave continue to accrue annual leave
  • Workers can take holiday during sick leave, however if they are unable or do not wish to do so, they can take it at a different time, even if this means carrying it over to the next holiday year

These decisions were all made under the EC Working Time Directive (“Directive”). However, they conflict with regulation 13(9) of the Working Time Regulations 1998 (“WTR”) which implements the Directive in the UK. Specifically, this provides that statutory annual leave must be taken in the same year in which it is accrued and cannot be carried over into the following leave year.

Continue Reading Holiday entitlement during sick leave – Where are we now?