Page 46 - MONACO LAW REVIEW 2025-2

Payment After the Expiry of the
Limitation Period: Back Pay Does Not
Revive Time-Barred Claims
Court of Appeal of Monaco, 24 June 2025
Case R.06135
BACKGROUND:
The judgment concerns the limitation period applicable to
salary claims. More specifi cally, the issue was whether the
payment of salary arrears by an employer after the limitation
period had already run could amount to an implied waiver
of the time-bar defence.
The dispute turned on the interpretation of Articles 2072 (a
waiver of limitation may only occur once the limitation period
has run) and 2073 (a waiver, whether express or implied,
must result from conduct evincing an intention to relinquish
the vested right to invoke the time-bar) of the Monegasque
Civil Code.
The employee argued that payments made in 2019 and 2021
by the employer, several years after the period worked (2011–
2015), constituted an acknowledgment of debt and therefore
a waiver of the time-bar defence for other claims relating
to the earlier period. The employer contended that these
salary-arrear payments had been made in good faith, with no
intention of relinquishing the vested time-bar defence.
ANALYSIS:
The Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of the Labour Court
rejecting the employee’s claim.
The fi ve-year limitation period applicable to salary claims
had run, and the payments of salary arrears made in 2019
and 2021 could not interrupt a limitation period that had
already expired. Those payments alone could not amount to
an implied waiver of the time-bar defence, as there was no
conduct demonstrating a clear intention to relinquish the time-
bar in respect of the other claims concerned.
In other words, the voluntary payment of time-barred sums
does not constitute an implied waiver of the time-bar for
other claims, even where they are similar in nature or relate
to the same period of employment. The voluntary payment
of a time-barred debt constitutes the performance of a natural
obligation, but does not revive extinguished rights for other
analogous claims. Accordingly, the sums voluntarily paid
amount to an implied waiver only for those specifi c debts;
the subsequent claims cannot be regarded as a waiver in the
absence of unequivocal conduct on the part of the employer.
SIGNIFICANCE:
The decision reaffi rms the strict character of the limitation
regime: a waiver of a right — here, the limitation defence —
cannot be presumed. A waiver of a time-bar that has already
run requires a positive act which, in itself, must demonstrate
the clear intention of its author to relinquish that right.
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By this ruling, the Court provides legal certainty for salary-
arrear payments made in good faith after the expiry of
the limitation period: such payments do not amount to an
admission of liability or to an automatic waiver, nor do they
reopen the possibility of further claims for the same period.
As for employees, they must be reminded of the necessity of
acting before the expiry of the limitation period, failing which
they run the risk of defi nitively losing the right they seek to
assert.
YS
Collective Agreement and Restoring
Trade-Union Pluralism
Court of First Instance of Monaco, 20 March 2025
No. 2021/000354
BACKGROUND:
A trade union complained that it had been excluded from
acceding to the 1971 collective agreement for performing
musicians and, as a result, from taking part in the ongoing
collective bargaining process.
The case raised two issues: fi rst, the legal characterisation
of the dispute — whether it constituted a collective dispute
— which determined the jurisdiction of the judicial courts;
and second, the compatibility of the Monegasque statutory
mechanism governing accession to collective agreements
with the freedom of association guaranteed by Article 11 of
the European Convention on Human Rights. Under domestic
law, accession is subject to the unanimous agreement of the
signatory parties (Article 11 of Law No. 416 of 7 June 1945).
The Court of First Instance held that it had jurisdiction,
declining to classify the dispute as a collective dispute. On
the merits, it found that the refusal of accession by the other
trade union was lawful under domestic law, but set aside the
unanimity rule as contrary to Article 11 of the Convention,
since in practice it results in the creation of a trade-union
monopoly.
ANALYSIS:
The judgment recalls an important point: a dispute that
concerns only the prerogatives of a trade union — here, its
right to accede to a collective agreement or to participate in
its renegotiation — does not constitute a collective dispute. It
therefore does not fall within the mandatory conciliation and
arbitration system established by Law No. 473 of 4 March 1948,
but falls instead within the general jurisdiction of the Court
of First Instance, which is accordingly empowered to review
the mechanisms governing access to collective bargaining.
The Court carried out a concrete review of compatibility with
the Convention, referring to the case law of the European
Court of Human Rights, and drew several consequences
from it. The right to collective bargaining forms an integral
part of the freedom of association protected by Article 11
ECHR, and the domestic rule allowing a signatory union to