18 September 2026
Working time, holidays and leave
Shared Law 104 leave: individual recovery of undue amounts exceeding the three days or in the case of simultaneous use
INPS
Several workers may be authorised to take leave under Law 104 (permessi 104, the paid leave granted under Law No. 104/1992) to assist the same person with a disability, but the limit remains three days in total per month, to be taken alternately. INPS therefore stresses the need for joint planning among the authorised family members.
Where the overall limit is exceeded, the criterion of temporal priority applies: once the three days have been used up, any further use is undue and INPS recovers the benefit from the worker who used the excess days or hours.
Where, instead, several entitled persons take leave on the same day or during the same hours to assist the same person, there is no temporal priority. The undue amount is therefore divided equally among all the workers who used the benefit simultaneously, with recovery proportionate to each worker’s working hours.
12 August 2026
Incentives
Contribution relief excluded if the worker was an apprentice with the same employer in the previous six months
Court of Cassation, Labour Division
A professional firm had hired on a permanent basis a worker with whom, a few months earlier, it had had a vocational apprenticeship (apprendistato professionalizzante) relationship, and had applied for the contribution exemption provided for new stable hires. The lower courts had granted the benefit, holding that the apprenticeship should not be regarded, for these purposes, as a previous permanent employment relationship.
The Supreme Court, departing from one of its own 2024 precedents, held instead that the vocational apprenticeship is an employment relationship of indefinite duration, albeit structured in two phases and subject to the possibility of withdrawal at the end of the training. The law expressly excludes apprenticeship only with regard to the new relationship giving access to the relief; for the previous relationship, by contrast, it is sufficient that the worker was employed on a permanent basis in the preceding six months.
It follows that a previous vocational apprenticeship carried out in that period precludes entitlement to the relief. The judgment in favour of the employer was set aside and the case remitted.
15 September 2026
Whistleblowing
Whistleblowing: disciplinary sanctions lacking grounds unrelated to the report are retaliatory
ANAC
A municipal employee had reported certain alleged irregularities in administrative activity to the anticorruption officer. In the following months the Secretary General, who also held the role of RPCT (Responsabile della Prevenzione della Corruzione e della Trasparenza, the officer responsible for corruption prevention and transparency), imposed two disciplinary sanctions on him: one for the expressions used in a report and one for the notification that his sick leave was being extended.
After the judgment annulling both sanctions became final, ANAC (Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione, the Italian National Anticorruption Authority) reopened the suspended proceedings. As regards the first measure, the court had established the link with the report; as regards the second, it had ruled out the factual basis relied upon by the Administration.
According to the Authority, retaliation may be inferred from serious, precise and consistent circumstantial evidence and does not follow automatically from the judicial annulment of the sanction. In the case at hand, relevant factors included the temporal proximity, the sequence of disciplinary initiatives, the identity of the person who adopted them, that person’s direct knowledge of the reports and the failure to prove grounds unrelated to them.
ANAC therefore declared the second disciplinary sanction retaliatory as well and imposed an administrative fine of EUR 10,000 on the Secretary General.
15 June 2026
Executives
No payment in lieu for an executive who can determine their own holidays and does not request them
Court of Cassation, Labour Division
Following the termination of her employment, an executive (dirigente) had claimed payment in lieu (indennità sostitutiva) for 228 days of holiday which she alleged she had not taken. The Court of Appeal had dismissed the claim, finding that, at least since 2004, the employee had the power to determine her holiday periods autonomously and that she had not proven that she was unable to take them owing to exceptional business requirements.
The Supreme Court reiterated that failure to exercise the right to holidays gives rise to payment in lieu where it depends on the will of the employer or on exceptional and overriding business needs. Payment in lieu is not due, however, to an employee who, having the power to determine their own holidays, did not request them.
As regards the other periods, the lower courts had established, on the basis of the pay slips, that the employee had taken holiday in every year except 2009, and also in further periods of the year.
16 September 2026
Social security and contributions
INPS traders’ scheme: profits retained by an S.r.l. are excluded from the working shareholder’s contribution base
Court of Cassation, Labour Division
The sole shareholder and director of an S.r.l. (società a responsabilità limitata, a limited liability company), registered with the INPS traders’ scheme (gestione commercianti) because she habitually and predominantly took part in the company’s work, had challenged the contributions claimed by INPS on undistributed company profits allocated to reserves.
The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal brought by INPS. For a working shareholder of a capital company, the contribution base includes the share of the company’s business income attributed to the shareholder by reason of their holding and declared by them for IRPEF (Imposta sul Reddito delle Persone Fisiche, personal income tax) purposes. Attribution to the shareholder requires either receipt of the profits or the company’s election for the tax transparency regime.
Profits that are merely allocated to reserves, by contrast, remain income of the company and, in the absence of an election for transparency, do not form part of the working shareholder’s contribution base. It is for INPS to prove that the income was attributed to the shareholder and, therefore, that the obligation to declare it for IRPEF purposes arose. In the case examined, since those conditions were not met, the retained profits were excluded from contributions.
2 August 2026
Dismissal for just cause
Disciplinary dismissal without notice of charges: mitigated reinstatement applies
Court of Cassation, Labour Division
An employee hired on a fixed term contract as a chambermaid had been dismissed on disciplinary grounds without any written notice of the charges against her. The lower courts had declared the dismissal unlawful and ordered reinstatement, together with damages. In the case at hand, the applicable sanctions regime was by then covered by res judicata.
The Supreme Court confirmed that the total absence of a notice of disciplinary charges falls within the case of the alleged fact not existing and entails mitigated reinstatement protection (tutela reintegratoria attenuata). The complete omission of the notice of charges cannot be equated with a mere procedural irregularity: otherwise, the total failure to set out the conduct giving rise to the dismissal would attract a lighter sanction than cases in which the alleged fact is found not to exist.
The Court therefore dismissed the employer’s appeal, upholding the reinstatement protection applied in the proceedings on the merits.
21 July 2026
Pay and benefits
Superminimum: company practice may prevent its absorption and withdrawal must be clear and made known
Court of Cassation, Labour Division
A company had absorbed the individual superminimum (superminimo, a contractual top up element above the minimum pay scale) paid to its employees, arguing that the payment was naturally absorbable and that the contrary company practice had been validly terminated.
The Supreme Court recalled that the superminimum is, as a rule, absorbable into subsequent collective pay increases, unless otherwise provided or based on an independent entitlement. However, natural absorbability may also be excluded by a company practice (uso aziendale), formed through the constant and general repetition of conduct by the employer favourable to employees, without the need for a common contractual intention.
A company practice, as a social source of law, may be terminated by the employer, but the intention to withdraw must be clear, unequivocal and made known to the workforce concerned; mere failure to perform the obligations arising from the practice is not sufficient. Once the formation of the practice has been proven, the burden is on the employer to prove the extinguishing fact.
In the case examined, the assessment on the merits had ruled out a valid termination and the Court dismissed the appeal.
