Legitimate dismissal of manager who issued false invoices
The offences were committed in the sports sponsorship contracts. The fact that he was no longer a director at the time of the termination is irrelevant.
2' min read
2' min read
Legitimate termination for just cause of an executive who, in his capacity as director, had carried out false invoicing and created parallel accounting to the detriment of the Treasury. With Order 2815 of 21 August 2025, the Court of Cassation confirmed the termination for just cause announced in 2017 to a manager, rejecting his appeal against the appeal sentence that had proved him wrong and consolidating a strict orientation on the relationship between trust and behaviour outside work.
The affair
.The case concerned a series of accounting transactions related to the management of sports sponsorships, which had resulted in false invoices and an off-accounting system aimed at personal gain. According to the judges of merit, such conduct had resulted in an alteration of tax declarations and damage to the treasury. The manager was also accused of not having informed the new directors who took over, aggravating the damage to the trust relationship.
The defence had insisted on the disciplinary irrelevance of the facts, arguing that they were extralaborative conduct, carried out with the endorsement of the previous top management and in any case prior to the termination of the office of director. Arguments that the Court of Cassation held to be unfounded, reiterating that the tolerance or even the participation of the owners cannot be relevant: the law does not legitimise conduct contrary to the law merely because it is endorsed by the corporate officers.
The Reasons of the Supreme Court
.In its reasoning, the Court of Legitimacy recalled the consolidated principles on the subject of proportionality between the charge and the sanction, recalling that just cause may also derive from conduct extraneous to the performance, provided that it is so serious as to make the continuation of the relationship impracticable. In this perspective, the tax offence - albeit committed in the capacity of director - does not lose disciplinary importance when, as in this case, it directly affects the life of the company and reflects on the reliability of the manager.
The judges referred to well-established precedents, according to which the creation of hidden funds and the falsification of accounts are always unlawful conduct, as they violate primary legal values, regardless of their criminal relevance. The concept of 'unlawful' - the Court emphasises - is to be understood as that which contravenes the entire legal system and the minimum rules of fairness and loyalty that govern economic relations.
