On 9 July 2026, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on a cross-border employment dispute that had been working its way through the French courts for more than a decade.
At its centre was a director employed by Hortis GRC SA, an established Swiss IT consulting company founded in 1997, who lived and worked in France. The arrangement had lasted for years without becoming a legal problem. Then he was dismissed.
The dispute eventually reached the EU’s highest court, where the French and Swiss elements of the employment relationship had to be weighed against one another.
What makes the case particularly useful is that nothing about the arrangement looked especially dramatic until the dismissal exposed the tension between its French and Swiss elements. The detail matters here, so it is worth following the case step by step.
A Swiss Contract, a French Workplace
Hortis hired JA as a director in September 2007. He lived in France and carried out his work there, while his employment was organised through a number of Swiss arrangements.
His contract was governed by Swiss law. He was paid in Swiss francs into a Swiss bank account, participated in the Swiss social security system and received Swiss tax treatment. Hortis also pointed to his Swiss business email address and mobile number as further links with Switzerland.
For several years, those French and Swiss elements existed alongside one another without becoming contentious.
That changed in January 2012, when Hortis dismissed JA under Swiss procedure. Swiss rules did not require the pre-dismissal interview or the same formal reasons for dismissal that French rules required.
JA challenged both the dismissal procedure and the grounds for his dismissal before the French courts. From that point, details that had simply been part of the employment arrangement became central to deciding which country’s employment rules should apply.
France, Switzerland and the Appeal
JA’s challenge did not succeed at first. In 2016, the Paris labour tribunal rejected his claims. He appealed, and in 2020 the Paris Court of Appeal reached a different conclusion.
The appeal court focused on the fact that JA had habitually carried out his work in France. It applied the French rules governing dismissal, including the requirement for a pre-dismissal interview and the obligation to state the reasons for dismissal in the termination letter.
Those protections did not form part of the Swiss procedure Hortis had followed. The Court of Appeal found the dismissal unjustified and awarded JA damages.
Hortis then appealed to the French Court of Cassation.
Its argument went beyond the Swiss governing-law clause in the employment contract. Hortis said the Court of Appeal had treated JA’s place of work as decisive without properly examining the other elements connecting the employment relationship with Switzerland: his salary in Swiss francs, Swiss bank account, participation in the Swiss social security system and Swiss tax treatment.
In other words, Hortis argued that working habitually in France did not, on its own, settle which country was more closely connected with the employment relationship.
The French Court of Cassation referred the issue to the Court of Justice of the European Union, asking it to clarify how those different connections should be weighed.
The Court of Justice of the European Union Judgment
The Court of Justice did not decide whether French or Swiss law ultimately governed JA’s dismissal. It sent that assessment back to the French court, but clarified how the competing connections had to be considered.
JA’s habitual place of work in France was important, but it was not automatically decisive. The court also had to consider whether the employment relationship, viewed as a whole, was more closely connected with Switzerland.
That brought the Swiss elements back into the analysis: JA’s social security coverage, tax treatment, remuneration arrangements and other circumstances surrounding the employment relationship.
The Court also made clear that this was not a matter of simply counting French factors against Swiss ones. Some connections may carry considerably more weight than others, depending on what they reveal about the employment relationship.
If, after examining those circumstances, the French court finds a closer connection with Switzerland, Swiss law may govern the dismissal even though JA habitually worked in France.
Determining Applicable Law in Cross-Border Employment
Hortis had one obvious point in its favour: JA’s employment contract expressly chose Swiss law.
But the Court drew a line between choosing Swiss law and showing that the employment relationship was genuinely more closely connected with Switzerland. The first was written into the contract. The second had to be established from the way the employment relationship was organised and performed.
The Court rejected that circular logic. If the governing-law clause itself were treated as proof of a closer Swiss connection, the argument would simply feed back into itself.
The stronger evidence lay elsewhere: JA’s Swiss social security coverage, Swiss tax treatment, salary in Swiss francs and the other features Hortis relied on. Those factors had value because they existed independently of the wording of the contract and could help show where the employment relationship was anchored in practice.
The Court did not assess them mechanically. Nor did it suggest that the side with more national connections wins. The issue was the significance of each connection and what, taken together, those facts revealed about the relationship.
The Court also looked at how those Swiss connections had been created. The French court was asked to consider whether arrangements such as social security, tax and remuneration genuinely reflected the employment relationship or had simply been set by Hortis. That could change how the court viewed them.
The Closer-Connection Test
The fact that JA worked habitually in France gave the French courts a strong starting point. Under the Rome Convention, the country where the employee normally performs the work carries particular weight when determining which employment rules apply.
But Hortis argued that the analysis should not stop there.
The Convention allows a different conclusion where the employment relationship is more closely connected with another country. In JA’s case, that brought the Swiss elements back into focus: his social security coverage, tax treatment, remuneration arrangements and the other circumstances surrounding his employment.
The Court of Justice agreed that those connections had to be assessed alongside the French workplace. Habitual place of work remained important, but it did not automatically override everything pointing elsewhere.
This left open a result that may seem counter-intuitive at first. If the French court ultimately finds that JA’s employment was more closely connected with Switzerland, Swiss law may govern the dismissal even though he spent the employment relationship working in France and French dismissal rules would have offered him greater protection.
The Court of Justice did not make that final determination. It clarified how the French and Swiss connections should be weighed and left the conclusion to the French court.
The More Protective French Rules
French dismissal rules gave JA protections that Swiss law did not, including a pre-dismissal interview and requirements around the dismissal letter. The Paris Court of Appeal treated those protections as mandatory and applied them because JA habitually worked in France.
The Court of Justice took a different view of how those protections fit into the analysis. Greater protection did not, by itself, make the French rules applicable.
The first task was to determine which country was more closely connected with the employment relationship. If that assessment ultimately pointed to Switzerland, the French court could not simply add the more favourable French dismissal rules because they offered JA a better outcome.
This is an important part of the judgment. Employee protection remains central to the Rome Convention, but it does not turn the analysis into a comparison of which connected country offers the stronger dismissal rights. The applicable law still has to be established from the employment relationship itself.
Hortis and Today’s Remote Work Reality
JA’s employment began in 2007, before cross-border remote work became common. The arrangement now looks familiar: an employee living and working in one country, an employer based in another, with tax, social security, pay and contractual arrangements spanning both.
Remote work has made these mixed-country relationships far more common. Employees may relocate while remaining on an existing payroll or social security system, or work permanently from another country without the employment setup changing at the same pace.
Hortis shows that these elements are not always separate administrative details. If the relationship later ends in dispute, the employee’s place of work, tax treatment, social security coverage, remuneration and contractual terms may all influence which country is considered more closely connected with the employment.
Because JA’s employment began in 2007, the case was decided under the 1980 Rome Convention. For newer EU employment contracts, the equivalent framework is set out in Article 8 of the Rome I Regulation.
Cross-Border Employment with Acumen International
Cases like Hortis show why cross-border employment cannot be reduced to a contract template or a payroll setup. The legal employer, the employee’s place of work, social security, tax treatment, remuneration and immigration position can all shape the employment relationship in different ways.
Acumen International helps companies employ people across borders through our Global Employer of Record solutions, with the employment arrangement built around the actual country, role and circumstances of the hire.
We coordinate the local employment, payroll and compliance requirements through our network of country experts, so the different parts of the arrangement are considered together rather than in isolation.
If you are hiring, relocating or retaining an employee across borders, speak with Acumen International about the employment model before the arrangement is put in place.