Irish low-cost airline Ryanair must pay more than 600,000 euros to its ten former employees in Lithuania for their unlawful dismissal, a Lithuanian court has ruled.
Kaunas District Court considered a lawsuit filed by the dismissed employees against Ryanair’s subsidiaries – Ireland’s Ryanair Designated Activity Company and Poland’s Ryanair Sun.
All the plaintiffs are Lithuanian residents, Vaiva Milkeraitiene, the Court President’s representative, said.
The employees were dismissed in June 2020, when their functions became redundant.
The claimants argued that they were unlawfully dismissed because they should have been transferred to the Polish company under the same conditions following the transfer of the business.
The Irish company maintained that there was no transfer of the business, and the applicants were dismissed because they committed a serious violation of the work discipline by failing to come to work after their transfer to Stansted Airport. According to the ex-employees, they did not agree to be transferred to London.
The court partially upheld the claim, saying that the business transfer had, in fact, taken place and that the workers had been dismissed in breach of the Labour Code.
“As the transfer of part of the business was found to have taken place, joint solidarity liability of the defendants – the Irish and Polish companies – was applicable,” it said.
The court decision could still be appealed. (LRT/Business World Magazine)
