The Notion of “Employee” in the IDD: A Harmonized Interpretation Based on the EU Law
AbstractThe issue of the interpretation of the concept of an “employee of insurance undertaking”, which was used in the Directive on insurance distribution may cause issues from the point of view of the definition of the “employee” in terms of the type of legal relationship and the scope of activities that are allowed to be performed only by such employees. The authors demonstrate that, in accordance with the previous case law of the European Court of Justice/Court of Justice of the European Union, the concepts contained in EU directives should be interpreted in accordance with EU law, taking into account its autonomy and its aim (harmonization of legal systems of Member States). This should be applied even if a simple translation of a particular term used in an EU directive into the language of a Member State may give rise to an incentive for that term to be interpreted in the context of a local legal system.