On 3 October 2020, the aforementioned law has entered into force and it brings substantial changes to the Labour Code, from more than one perspective. More specifically, the aspects that have been amended regard:

1. Human resources activity

The novelty element brought by the Law no. 213/2020 in this area envisages the fact that the human resources activity performed by specialised external services shall only be coordinated by a labour law expert.

2. Representation capacity

Until now, the representation capacity of the parties to the labour agreement belonged to third parties, and by third parties, according to the law, was meant the attorney-at-law or the union representative, in employees‘ case, or attorneys-at-law or persons expressly empowered in this respect, in case of employers. Since the enactment of the aforementioned law, the parties can also be represented by a labour law expert or a mediator specialised in labour law during negotiations, upon the conclusion or amendment of the labour agreement or during the conciliation of a labour conflict. In respect to the above, both aforementioned categories have the same representation powers as the attorney-at-law and are jointly referred to by the law as “external consultants specialised in labour law”.

3. Conciliation procedure

Law no. 213/2020 provides the fact that the parties shall attempt to amicably solve any labour conflicts, in good faith and can expressly provide within the content of the labour agreement the fact that any labour conflict shall be solved only after undertaking the conciliation procedure. Should this compulsoriness be provided in the labour agreement, any of the parties can, during this phase, be assisted by the external consultant specialised in labour law.

The conciliation procedure shall be initiated by addressing an invitation to the other party and shall take place within 5 days at the most since the communication of the invitation; the contestation terms shall be suspended during conciliation. The result of the conciliation shall be provided within a minutes signed by the parties, as well as by the external consultant; the minutes shall contain the agreement of the parties, or, in case of disagreement or absence, shall make reference to the fact the conciliation has failed. The labour conflict attempted to be conciliated, but failed, can be further solved by the competent courts.

4. Disciplinary investigation

In what regards the disciplinary area, the law requires for the labour agreement to provide a procedure for amicably solving the labour conflicts, requests or individual employee request.

In addition, in order to perform the disciplinary investigation, the attribution that belonged in practice exclusively to the disciplinary commission can now be undertaken also by the external consultant specialised in labour law. The sphere of the persons representing the employee has also been extended and includes, besides the attorney-at-law and the union representative, the labour law expert/ the mediation specialised in labour law.