Who is afraid of unions representation? Some considerations on the SAP SE case in the light of EU Labour Law.

Abstract

The contribution focuses on the Bundesarbeitsgericht’s question to the Court of Justice whether a provision according to which, in the case where an SE with its registered office in Germany is established by means of transformation, a separate selection procedure for persons nominated by trade unions for a certain number of supervisory board members representing the employees must be guaranteed (§ 21(6) SEBG), is compatible with Article 4(4) of Council Directive 2001/86/EC of 8 October 2001 supplementing the Statute for a European company with regard to the involvement of employees. In the view of the Author the answer should be in the sense of compatibility.