Is an employee obliged to provide his employer with information about his state of health on request and / or to be tested for the Corona virus?
A general obligation to provide information regarding contagious diseases is to be answered in the affirmative if this disease could endanger work colleagues and other third parties. In the case of infectious diseases according to the epidemic law, such as the corona virus, the duty of loyalty owed by the employee also requires proactive information from the employer so that the employer can immediately take protective measures against the other employees.
If an employee has been infected with the corona virus or if he is in an officially ordered quarantine because of a specific suspicion of the infection, he is in any case obliged to inform his employer immediately.
However, without showing symptoms, an employee cannot be ordered by his employer to undergo a corona virus test, even if he has recently returned from an area at risk. In this case, the employer is only free to temporarily release the employee concerned to protect the rest of the workforce. Read more…
A leading Hungarian commercial bank had been offered securities held on a securities account owned by a “Sparverein,” a specific Austrian legal entity similar to a savings club, as collateral for a credit agreement with a separate entity. As the bank was unfamiliar with the corporate form of a Sparverein, and the laws applicable for such entities, it raised several questions and the bank wanted to ensure that its collateral would be valid and enforceable. These questions, among others, related to whether the Sparverein is allowed to offer its funds as collateral in general, and with respect to loans granted to a third party in particular, as well as the enforceability of the security deposit in a liquidation procedure or any other insolvency situation.