Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber) of 14 October 2020 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunale ordinario di Brescia – Italy) – JH v KG

(Case C-681/18) ¹

(Reference for a preliminary ruling – Social policy – Directive 2008/104/EC – Temporary agency work – Article 5(5) – Equal treatment – Appropriate measures to prevent misuse of temporary agency work – Obligation for Member States to prevent successive assignments – No limits in national law – Requirement to interpret national law in conformity with EU law)

Language of the case: Italian

Referring court

Tribunale ordinario di Brescia

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: JH

Defendant: KG

Operative part of the judgment

The first sentence of Article 5(5) of Directive 2008/104/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on temporary agency work must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation which does not limit the number of successive assignments that the same temporary agency worker may fulfil at the same user undertaking and does not make the lawfulness of the use of temporary agency work subject to the prerequisite that it must be justified by technical, production, organisation or replacement-related reasons. On the other hand, that provision must be interpreted as precluding a Member State from taking no measures at all to preserve the temporary nature of temporary agency work and as precluding national legislation which does not lay down any measure to prevent successive assignments of the same temporary agency worker to the same user undertaking in order to circumvent the provisions of Directive 2008/104 as a whole.

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¹ OJ C 35, 28.1.2019.