Acquired Rights Directive

This EU Directive was intended to safeguard the rights of workers by ensuring that workers were entitled to continue working for the transferee employer on the same terms and conditions as those agreed with the transferor employer. For any job transfer within the Directive, contracts of employment run with the undertaking; the transferee cannot take the business without the employees and must take those employees subject to existing employment rights and obligations. A transfer cannot constitute grounds for dismissal, whether carried out by the transferor or transferee, unless there is an economic, technical or organizational reason entailing changes in the workforce.