In brief
This publication features the latest employment law developments in Italy.
Key takeaways
- Case law developments
- An employee who falls for a phishing scam causing economic damage to the employer may be lawfully dismissed
- An employee may refuse to work in a harmful environment
- Dismissal following employee's refusal to waive accrued entitlements and vacation days was unlawful
- Company email and the right to secrecy after termination of employment
In more detail
Case law developments
An employee who falls for a phishing scam causing economic damage to the employer may be lawfully dismissed
The Supreme Court confirmed that the assessment of the seriousness of an employee's misconduct must be measured against the specific duties assigned to them and the degree of diligence ordinarily required for their performance. In this case, the court confirmed the legitimacy of the dismissal for just cause of an employee working in accounting who, by failing to adopt basic precautions to verify the authenticity of a request to make a bank transfer, fell victim to online fraud, resulting in financial damage to the company. This behavior constitutes negligence proportionally sanctionable with dismissal, and it is irrelevant that an employee had never received any specific anti‑phishing training.
An employee may refuse to work in a harmful environment
In a recent ruling, the Supreme Court confirmed the retaliatory nature of the dismissal of an employee who was absent from work because they refused to work due to a harmful environment. Exposing an employee to degrading conditions in the workplace, such as excessive cold and non-private restrooms visible from the outside, could constitute valid reasons for an employee to refuse to continue performing their duties.
Dismissal following employee's refusal to waive accrued entitlements and vacation days was unlawful
In a recent ruling, a local court decided that an employee's dismissal, was unlawful because it was in retaliation for the employee's refusal to sign a settlement agreement waiving their accrued entitlements and unused vacation days. As a result, an employee was reinstated and awarded compensation for damages, as well as payment of social security and salary from the date of dismissal until reinstatement.
Company email and the right to secrecy after termination of employment
The Italian Data Protection Authority fined a company EUR 40,000 for violating the confidentiality of electronic correspondence linked to the corporate email account of a former CEO whose employment had ended. The former CEO claimed that, following his disciplinary dismissal, the company initially refused his requests for access to his corporate email account — which remained active after termination — and subsequently failed to respond to his requests to deactivate the account, forward messages to his personal address and set up an automatic reply informing senders of his new contact details. The authority found that the company continued to receive emails addressed to the former employee for approximately two months and, in some cases, even forwarded them to another corporate email account. Therefore, the fine was imposed on the basis that the constitutionally protected right to secrecy covers email content, contact data and any attachments, in line with the EU principle that privacy protection also extends to the workplace.