The sentence n. Section 19291 of 22.09.2011 of the Supreme Court Labour Division has gone a bit unnoticed. Yet it is important because it has confirmed, perhaps for once and for all, the principle according to which the employee's severance pay does not only come into existence at the time of termination of a contract, as stated by the Supreme Court for a long time and accredited by many, but previously, in correspondence with the provisions that are made annually.
Therefore, in the event of a transfer of business and continuation of the employment relationship to the assignee pursuant to art. 2112 cc, the transferring employer is obliged, at the time of termination of employment, following the transfer itself to pay the leaving employee severance pay matured up to the date of the transfer of the company and for this credit of the worker there is a bond of solidarity between the transferor and transferee envisaged by art. 2112 of the Civil Code, paragraph 2; however the only one due the termination indemnity as far as the termination indemnity accrued in the period of the relationship following the transfer of the company, is the transferring employer.
This is therefore the principle of law enunciated by the aforementioned sentence "In the case of transfer of a company subject to the regime referred to in Article 2112 of the Civil Code, the transferor employer remains obliged vis-à-vis his employee, whose relationship continues with the transferor employer, for the portion of the severance pay accrued during the period of the working relationship and calculated up to the date of the transfer of the company, while the transferee employer is due this same quota only in reason and within the limits of the solidarity limit provided for by Article 2112 of the Italian Civil Code, paragraph 2. On the contrary, the latter, as transferee, is the only one due the severance pay as for the amount accrued in the period of the relationship after the transfer of the business".
