Supreme Court No. 23031 – 22 August 2024
The Supreme Court confirms the validity of dismissal for just cause of the
general manager of a bank.
1.Principle of timeliness in relative sense
- For the dismissal to be valid, theemployer’s reaction to the breach must be fast.
- Of relevance, however, is not (in absolute) the date of the historical occurrence of the ‘fact’, but rather (in a relative manner) the date of full employer’s knowledge of the ‘fact’.
In the present case, the Supreme Court considered a time span of three months (December 2016/March 2017) elapsed between the date of conclusion of the inspection by the Bank of Italy and the date of full knowledge, by the Board of Directors, of the individual breaches.
Are in conformity with the principle, the following judgements
- Civil Cassation, Sec. Lav., 15 March 2023, no. 7467
- Court of Appeal of Milan, Sec. Lav., 25 September 2023, est. Cuomo
- Court of Velletri, Sec. Lav, 6 March 2018, est. Silvestrini.
Notion of just cause
The manager is dependent on the entrepreneur, who (as provided for in Art. 2086 civil code) is ‘the head of the enterprise’ and expresses its will through the administrative administrative body, ‘the true hegemon of the corporate body corporate body’ (Civil Cassation, SS. UU., 20 January 2017, no. 1545).
The manager is bound by a bond of fiduciary bond of greater intensity
than other employees; correlatively, the employer has a broader spectrum of manoeuvre wider spectrum of manoeuvre where he considers that this
bond has been attacked or, in a more serious scenario, irreparably harmed.
In the present case, the Director-General was found to have committed several infringements closely linked to the control of risks, his specific prerogative: from delaying in the classification at increased risk of
positions characterised by obvious signs of deterioration, up to the omission of adequate actions aimed at recovery of the credit.
Are in conformity with the principle, the following judgements:
- Civil cassation, Sec. Lav., 10 January 2023, no. 381
- Civil cassation, Sec. Lav., 6 April 2022, no. 11172
- Civil cassation, Sec. Lav., 2 November 2021, no. 31202
Contact Lexellent for further information about directors dismissal, or any questions on Italian labour law.
