Opinion of Mr Advocate General Mancini

Mr President,

Members of the Court,

1. By two judgments delivered on 1 May 1987 the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden (Supreme Court of the Netherlands) seeks an interpretation by the Court of various provisions of Council Directive 77/187/EEC of 14 February 1977 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the safeguarding of employees' rights in the event of transfers of undertakings, (Official Journal 1977, L 61, p. 26).

2. Under Article 1 (1), Directive 771 187/EEC shall apply to the transfer of an undertaking ... to another employer as a result of a legal transfer or merger. In such cases, the transferor's rights and obligations arising from a contract of employment ... existing on the date of a transfer ... shall, by reason of such transfer, be transferred to the transferee. Member States may (however) provide that after the date of transfer ...and in addition to the transferee, the transferor shall continue to be liable in respect of obligations which arose from a contract of employment or an employment relationship (Article 3(1), first and second subparagraphs).

3. The first part of the second question does not give rise to any difficulties. The agreement which is the subject of the question to the Court is merely a subcategory of sale, whereby the purchaser acquires ownership of the object upon payment of the last instalment of the purchase price, although he bears the risk from the moment of delivery. There are therefore no grounds for doubting that, where such sale involves an undertaking, this constitutes a transfer within the meaning of Directive 77/187/EEC.

4. For all the foregoing reasons, I propose that in reply to the questions referred to the Court by the Hoge Raad by its judgments of 1 May 1987 in the actions brought by Mr Berg and Mr Busschers against Mr Besselsen, the Court should rule as follows:

1 Translated from the Italian.