Rojgar Job News

In a recent blog, we wrote about the stringent language requirements in Belgian employment: how documents drafted in the wrong language are null and void but that this sanction of nullity may not be to the detriment of the employee, meaning that the employee can do a “cherry picking” of the provisions that are most beneficial to their case [here]. The ink of our words hadn’t fully dried yet when a first hopeful message came, perhaps pointing to a more pragmatic approach by the Belgian courts. In a decision from July 2019, which was published only recently, the Brussels Employment Court rejected the idea of cherrypicking within the same document. The employee had claimed a prorated bonus on the basis of a bonus plan drafted in English, but had asked the Employment Court to set aside on language grounds the provision in it that excluded a bonus payment if employment was terminated before the end of the reference period, as had been hers. To allow cherrypicking, ruled the...