On 12 February, the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) in London delivered its judgment in a dispute between the Oracle European Works Council and the group’s management. While the case featured, sadly, a fairly ordinary dispute over restructuring and lack of appropriate EWC involvement, some parts of the judgement of the Central Arbitration Committee leave many experts concerned. The CAC decided, among others, that:
-EWC requests for financial information about the redundancy plans had the sole purpose of checking or challenging management’s decision, which is not within the competence of EWCs;
–As to whether there is an obligation on management to wait until the EWC issues its opinion before implementing a managerial decision decision at national and local level, the CAC found that the legal provisions referring to linking and the coordination of procedures at European and national level ‘do not indicate that the management cannot apply its decision before the European Works Council issues its opinion’.