New laws and regulations
Employers can give debit cards to their employees to allow them to enjoy fringe benefits
According to Italian laws, an employer can provide employees with goods and services instead of paying them monetary sums. These fringe benefits, within certain limits, are exempt from taxation. Recently, a company formally inquired with the Italian Revenue Agency, to ask whether employees can be provided with specific debit cards that may be used only by the beneficiaries to receive goods and services from selected vendors. The Italian Revenue Agency confirmed the feasibility of this solution and the exemption from taxation of the relevant sums, within the limits set by Italian tax laws. According to the Agency, the sums credited on the cards may only be used for company welfare purposes, therefore complying with Italian tax legislation.
Case law developments
Controls on employees' devices
In a recent ruling, the Italian Supreme Court ruled that an employer may only carry out forensic controls on its employees' devices if said controls (i) are carried out only after the employer starts suspecting that an employee committed unlawful activity and (ii) concern only data that refers to a period subsequent to the occurrence of such suspicion.
In the case at stake, the Supreme Court ruled that the dismissal of an employee was unlawful as it was based on forensic controls, carried out on data stored on the controlled devices, took place before the employer started suspecting misconduct.
Remote work for disabled employees
According to the Italian Supreme Court, remote working must be considered a reasonable accommodation to be implemented by employers to guarantee their disabled employees' right to work, where such accommodation does not result in an unreasonable financial burden. In this specific case, the court ruled that the refusal of an employer to allow a disabled employee to work remotely was unlawful, considering that (i) the physical conditions of the employee made accessing the company's premises difficult and (ii) remote working was regulated by a shop-level collective bargaining agreement.
Burden of proof in case of multiple disciplinary charges
If an employee is dismissed for cause following a disciplinary proceeding, in which the employee was charged with multiple disciplinary breaches, each of them independently can be used to justify the dismissal. Therefore, when challenging the dismissal, it is up to the employee to prove that all the disciplinary complaints, together, are insufficient to justify a dismissal for cause.
