OD FLASH | Collective bargaining: Termination of a collective agreement cannot be implied, according to the Cour de cassation (French Supreme Court).

Cass. soc., 29 mai 2024, n°22-23.415

On 27 October 2006, the employer and the union signed a company agreement enabling employees to benefit from a supplementary health insurance scheme. On 4 December 2006, an additional company agreement was signed that provided for the co-financing of the health care costs scheme by the central works council.

A few years later, negotiations were launched to revise the terms and conditions of this supplementary health insurance scheme in view of the obligation to introduce collective health insurance from 1 January 2016 (introduced by Law No. 2013-504 of 14 June 2013 on job security).

As no agreement was reached during these negotiations, the employer took a unilateral decision on 18 December 2015 to adjust the supplementary health insurance scheme.

The central works council and the trade union representatives then challenged the distribution of contributions resulting from this unilateral decision before the court, in particular in so far as it maintained the provisions of the agreement of 4 December 2006 on co-financing by the central works council, which they claimed had been implicitly terminated by the employer’s unilateral decision.

The Court of Appeal of Poitiers endorsed this analysis and held that the unilateral decision implicitly terminated the agreement of 27 October 2006 on the introduction of the scheme and rendered null and void the agreement of 4 December 2006 on co-financing.

The employer appealed the decision.

The Court of Cassation overturned the appeal decision and established the principle that the termination of a collective agreement cannot be implied. It ruled that “the modification of a supplementary health insurance scheme established by collective agreement by a unilateral decision of the employer, following the failure of collective bargaining, and made necessary by compliance with new legal and contractual provisions, does not deprive it of a reason and therefore does not render null and void a previous collective agreement concerning the co-financing of this supplementary scheme for social and cultural activities by the staff representatives”.

A company agreement introducing a supplementary social security scheme cannot therefore derogate from the rules of ordinary law on the termination of collective agreements.