Zambelli & Partners

Angelo Zambelli – Founding Partner, Zambelli & Partners                                            28-11-2025 The employer must notify the revocation of the layoff within fifteen days of notification by the employee of the challenge of the dismissal. Once the deadline for revoking the dismissal has expired, for the purposes of reinstating the employment relationship, the general principles of the legal system re-expand and the revocation of the dismissal takes the form of a negotiation proposal subject to the employee’s acceptance. After clarifying, with judgment no. 16630 of 2024, that the fifteen-day period for revoking dismissal – starting from the notification to the employer of the relevant challenge of the layoff – is completed by simply sending the revocation to the employee, the Supreme Court has ruled again on the matter in rulings no. 26954 and 26957 both of 7 October 2025, regarding two cases of dismissal served on pregnant employees and subsequently revoked. In the first case, the Court of Appeal of Venice deemed the revocation of the dismissal, which took place more than fifteen days after the challenge of the termination, to be timely made, linking the starting date of the fifteen-day term to the date on which the employer had become aware of the employee’s pregnancy by way of a subsequent communication integrating the challenge itself and accompanied by a medical certificate attesting pregnancy. According to the Court of merits, if the invalidity of the dismissal is not known (nor knowable) to the employer and does not relate to the reasons grounding the dismissal, the deadline for exercising the right of revocation of the layoff does not start from the generic challenge against dismissal, but from the moment when the employee “by means of the challenge … discloses the reason for the invalidity [of the dismissal].” The Supreme Court, in its ruling no. 26954/2025, rejected this interpretation, referring first and foremost to the wording of Article 6 of Law no. 604/1966, which does not require any particular formality for the extrajudicial challenge of dismissal, as “any written document suitable for making known the employee’s intention to challenge the dismissal” is sufficient. That said, the Supreme Court clarified that the revocation of dismissal constitutes the exercise of an exceptional discretionary right that allows the employer to unilaterally affect the legal sphere of the employee, resulting in the automatic reinstatement of the employment relationship, provided that the act is adopted within the peremptory term of fifteen days from the challenge of dismissal. Once this deadline has passed, the general principles of the legal system “re-expand,” so that the revocation of the dismissal takes the form of a negotiation proposal, without immediate effect and subject to the employee’s acceptance pursuant to Article 1326 of the Italian Civil Code. The Supreme Court reached the same conclusions in judgment no. 26957/2025, which also concerned a case in which the revocation of the dismissal took place after the peremptory deadline of fifteen days from its challenge. On that case, the Court—reaffirming the principle of law that the fifteen-day period for revoking the dismissal commences from the date of the challenge against the dismissal, regardless of the reasons given by the employee for its invalidity—specified that, once that period has expired, a conclusive behaviour on the part of the employee is not sufficient for the purposes of reinstating the employment relationship, but an agreement is necessary, subject to the ordinary rules of contract formation and therefore based on the acceptance of the offer. Given that the interpretation of the law in the decisions appears to comply with the law, in the second case, a principle of stipulation of the agreement by conclusive facts could also be inferred. However, in the first degree, the Court of merits assessed that the employee had not accepted the company’s proposal. Key Action Points for Human Resources and In-House Counsel Practical Points The employer must notify the revocation of the layoff within fifteen days of notification by the employee of the challenge of the dismissal. Such fifteen-day deadline is not linked to the reason for which the dismissal was challenged and disclosed by the employee at a later stage; Once the deadline for revoking the dismissal has expired, for the purposes of reinstating the employment relationship, the general principles of the legal system re-expand and the revocation of the dismissal takes the form of a negotiation proposal subject to the employee’s acceptance.