Amendments to the Labour Code made by Law no. 213/2020

Law no. 213/2020 was published in the Official Gazette no. 893 of September 30, 2020 and contains a series of amendments and additions to the Labour Code, applicable as of October 3, 2020.

The most important new regulations in Law no. 213/2020 include:

• introducing the conciliation procedure as a possibility to amicably settle individual labour disputes, based on the consent between the employer and the employee, with the support of an external consultant specialized in labour law, in a neutral, impartial and confidential manner;
• introducing employers’ obligation to include provisions on the procedure for amicable settlement of individual labour disputes in the internal regulations;
• express provisions on the possibility for employers and employees to sign a confidentiality agreement in connection with the information exchanged during the performance of the individual labour agreement, as well as during conciliation;
• provisions regarding the role of the external consultant specialized in labour law, having as main attributions: (a) the amicable settlement of individual labour disputes in the conciliation procedure, (b) performing the disciplinary investigation, if appointed by the employer in this sense, (c) assisting the employer or the employee in the negotiation, signing or amendment of the individual labour agreement, during the preliminary disciplinary hearing or in the conciliation of an individual labour dispute;
• indicating employers’ alternatives for organizing the human resources and payroll activities, namely: (a) performance of specific attributions by the employer, (b) assigning attributions to one or more appointed employees, having specific responsibilities in the job description or (c) contracting external services specialized in human resources and payroll;
• introducing the requirement for external services specialized in human resources and payroll to be coordinated by an expert in labour law.