07 Sep European Court of Justice – August/September 2026
Reference for a preliminary ruling – Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations – Article 3 – Choice made by the parties – Article 6 – Contract of employment – Mandatory rules of the law which would be applicable in the absence of choice – Determination of the applicable law – Contract of employment more closely connected with another country – Criteria for assessment – Closer connections resulting, in the performance of a contract of employment, from the parties’ choice of the law applicable to that contract ).
ECJ 9 July 2026, Case C 768/24, Hortis.
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The last limb of Article 6(2) of the Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations, opened for signature in Rome on 19 June 1980, must be interpreted as meaning that where the parties have chosen the law applicable to the contract of employment, national courts must give priority to that law by disregarding the mandatory rules, affording greater protection, of the law which the employee seeks to have applied and which would be applicable, in the absence of choice, under Article 6(2)(a) and (b), if, in the light of the circumstances as a whole, that contract of employment is more closely connected with the country the law of which was chosen by the parties as the law applicable to that contract.
The last limb of Article 6(2) of the Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations, opened for signature in Rome on 19 June 1980, must be interpreted as meaning that in order to determine whether a contract of employment is more closely connected with a country other than that referred to in Article 6(2)(a) and (b), national courts must take into account, in the context of an overall assessment, all the objective elements which define the employment relationship concerned, including those resulting, in the performance of that contract, from the parties’ choice of the law applicable to that contract. In the context of that overall assessment, it falls to those courts to weigh up those elements in an appropriate manner.
