Court of Appeal of Amsterdam, 25 October 2011, LJN:
BU1290
The Facts
The personnel company Heineken Nederlands Beheer B.V. employs
about 70 catering employees. The employees are seconded on a
permanent basis to Heineken Nederland B.V. One day Heineken
Nederland B.V. decided to outsource the catering activities to
Albron B.V., which did employ the employees, but on considerably
worse employment conditions.
The catering employees took the position that the outsourcing
falls under the Directive on 'transfer of undertakings', so
that their employment contracts have automatically passed to
Albron. Albron, on the other hand, thought that there was no
transfer of undertaking because the employees were not in the
service of Heineken Nederland B.V., which has transferred the
catering activities to Albron. The employees were in the service of
a separate personnel company.
