BAG: Protected employee status outlasts former GmbH-Geschäftsführer role

A man who was removed as Geschäftsführer (the German equivalent of a managing director with company-law powers) kept ordinary employee protection against dismissal months later, Germany’s top labor court ruled. The court’s written reasoning is not yet available.

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Protection after losing the Geschäftsführer title

Germany’s Federal Labor Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht, BAG) rejected the employer’s appeal. In Germany, a Geschäftsführer is a company officer with legal signing power for a GmbH (a common type of limited-liability company) — and people in that role normally do not get the standard protection against dismissal that regular employees have under the Kündigungsschutzgesetz (Termination Protection Act). This case asked what happens once that officer role ends but the person keeps working. The court decided that once a man was no longer Geschäftsführer, he counted as a normal employee again — even though his employment contract had originally been tied to that role. The decision was issued on June 17, 2026 (case number 2 AZR 89/25, appeals court case 14 SLa 578/24), and it means his employer’s termination did not end his employment.

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What happened in this case

The BAG’s written reasoning is not yet available. The lower court found out the following facts: A man was hired both as an employee and as Geschäftsführer of a German company, but his contract also allowed the company to assign him other duties beyond that officer role. The company removed him as Geschäftsführer and then spent several months unsuccessfully looking for another suitable position for him before terminating his employment. The appeals court found that, by the time the termination was issued, he was simply an employee like any other — so the company needed a valid legal reason to let him go, and it did not have one.