It not only changes procedural rules of the Labour Court Act, but also sets down an important new provision in substantive labour law: Under the new rules of the Civil Code, the termination of an employment relationship by notice of termination or dissolution agreement, as well as the temporal limitation of an employment agreement, require the written form to be effective.

GRP Rainer Lawyers Tax Advisors, Cologne, Berlin, Bonn, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Frankfurt www.grprainer.com elaborate: Henceforth, a termination - with or without notice - by the employer or employee is only legally effective if it has been declared in writing. This applies to all notices of termination received by the recipient of the termination after 01.05.2000. From that date also, a dissolution agreement or the temporal limitation of an employment agreement is valid only if agreed in writing. If a temporary employment contract was not concluded in writing, the temporal limitation is invalid and the contract is valid for an indefinite term.

The writing requirement for the above-mentioned forms of termination of an employment relationship is the logical complement to the Law on notification of conditions governing an employment relationship law, which requires the employer to fix in writing the essential contractual conditions and hand them over to the employee no later than one month after the agreed start of employment.

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