Windsor & DOMA: Issues For Cross-Border Employers

On June 26, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in U.S. v. Windsor that Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), which defined “marriage” as strictly between opposite-sex couples and “spouse” as referring only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife, was unconstitutional.  Given that there are hundreds of federal statutes and regulations using and giving effect to terms such as “spouse,” “marriage,” and other similar terms, […]

By | October 4th, 2013 ||

Ireland: Objective Grounds Justifying Renewal Of Fixed Term Contract

Section 9 of the Protection of Employees (Fixed Term Workers Act) 2003 (hereinafter FTWA) provides inter alia that an employer cannot have two or more fixed term contracts where the aggregate duration is greater than four years unless there are objective grounds for the renewal. Otherwise it will be read as a contract of indefinite duration (CID). In order to constitute objective grounds it must be “based on considerations other than the status of the employee […]

By | October 1st, 2013 ||

Certain Termination Indemnities Subject To Belgian Social Security Contributions

A new royal decree was published today in the Belgian State Gazette1, providing that several termination indemnities will be subject to social security contributions (withholding of 13.07% employee social security contributions and payment of approximately 35% employer social security contributions) as from 1 October 2013. Before, these indemnities were exempted from social security contributions.

This change will increase the cost to a company when paying out such indemnities.

It concerns e.g. the following:
Compensation for loss of […]

By | October 1st, 2013 ||