EUPillar Magali Warbecq v. Ryanair Ltd. - RG 116.416/A

Summary

By contract of employment signed in Dublin on 19 April 2001, Ms Warbecq was engaged by Ryanair as a ‘customer services agent-inflight’. Ryanair terminated the contract on 10 April 2002 and paid Ms Warbecq a severance allowance equivalent to seven days’ remuneration. On a date not specified in the judgment making the reference, Ms Warbecq brought proceedings against Ryanair before the Tribunal du travail de Charleroi. The application seeks an order for payment by the defendant in the main proceedings of certain sums by way of end-of-contract holiday allowance, additional severance pay and damages. The claimant in the main proceedings maintains that under Article 19 of Regulation No 44/2201 she had the choice of bringing proceedings against her employer in the courts of the place where the latter was domiciled and in the courts for the place where she habitually carried out her work, in this case Charleroi Airport. Ryanair contends that the Belgian courts have no jurisdiction to hear the action brought by Ms Warbecq. Taking the view that the resolution of the dispute before it required an interpretation of Article 19 of Regulation No 44/2001, the Tribunal du travail decided to stay the proceedings and refer the following questions to the Court for a preliminary ruling: ‘1. For the purposes of Article 19(2) of Council Regulation No 44/2001 …, what are the relevant criteria for determining the Contracting State on the territory of which an employee habitually carries out his work, when that employee is employed as a member of the air crew of an undertaking engaged in international air passenger transport? 2. Which place should be regarded as the place where or from which such an employee in fact performs most of his duties for his employer when the duties under the contract of employment are to be performed partly on the ground (airport) of a Contracting State and partly on an aircraft which has the nationality of another Contracting State which also recruited the employee?’ The ECJ considers that Regulation No 44/2001 was adopted on the basis of Article 61(c) EC, which appears in Part Three, Title IV of the EC Treaty. In those circumstances, only a national court or tribunal against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law may request the Court to give a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of that regulation. It is not disputed in the present case that decisions taken by the Tribunal du travail de Charleroi in proceedings such as the main proceedings are amenable to appeal under national law. Therefore, as the reference to the Court has not been made by a court or tribunal as referred to in Article 68 EC, the Court has no jurisdiction to give a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of Regulation No 44/2001.