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• Under the EC Collective Redundancies Directive, consultation provisions are not necessarily activated even where the employer is planning or deciding on collective redundancies.
• Where the parent company contemplates redundancies the duty to consult only arises when the parent company identifies the subsidiary affected.
• The consultation procedure must be concluded by the subsidiary before the parent company makes the final dismissal decision.
• Under articles 3 and 4 of the Collective Redundancies Directive (CRD), 'projected' collective redundancies is interpreted to mean that merely the intention to make collective redundancies invokes the obligation to consult.
• Within a group of companies the obligation to consult falls upon the company where the redundancies will happen once that particular company has been identified.
• Responsiblity for compliance falls on the he subsidiary employer. It must deal with consulting and informing the employees as required under the CRD.
• Decisions or changes in activities by employers that might lead to redundancies within companies oblige the holding of consultations with workers' representatives even when all the information required by the CRD is not yet available. Information that is lacking can be supplied during consultations as and when it becomes available. (52)
• The reason for this is so as "to enable the workers’ representatives to participate in the consultation process as fully and effectively as possible". (53) Following representations by the British government the ECJ agreed that the CRD would be interpreted so as to delay the time between the duty to consult arising and the consultation beginning.
• Under Directive 98/59 Article 2 an employment contract can be terminated by the employer only after its obligations are concluded (70)