International employment law: key insights from Italy

Businesses with an international presence must grapple with the idiosyncrasies of numerous legal systems, often with rules and procedures that seem anomalous. In a series of six podcasts, I have discussed “Five things you should know about employment law in….” with Emanuele Licciardi, Harold Berrier, Claire Taylor-Evans, Matthijs Roest Crollius, Juan Carlos Lombardia and Daniela Hangarter-Sperling and Julian Leicht.

We begin our journey in Italy, with Emanuele Licciardi. 

Investigations are the bedrock of any successful disciplinary process, but all too often go awry. Ensuring that an investigation is performed within its designated parameters, seems to be even more important in Italy than elsewhere, with potentially dire consequences of getting it wrong.  Of course, disciplinary investigation is only one aspect of a potential dismissal process, and Emanuele provides insights into other potential routes to dismissal.

Another issue for business is “delocalising” the business to reduce costs, and we discussed specific legislation introduced into Italian law in an endeavour to slow down the migration of companies away from their homeland. Equally, in today’s modern world, business often want to test another market and resort to the use of Employers of Record. In many countries this is not a particular issue but there are specific issues to take into account.

Finally, Emanuele discussed the perennial issue of restrictive covenants and some of the issues and nuances that need to be considered to ensure particular restrictions are enforceable.

I hope you will enjoy our discussion of these topics.