When using a CDD it is necessary to sign the contract under penalty of being retrained to a CDI. The Court of Cassation has just clarified that this signature is not necessarily handwritten.
CDD: signature is mandatory
A CDD must always be concluded in writing and include the employee’s signature. An unsigned CDD is equivalent to an unwritten CDD. The worker can then request the requalification of his contract in CDI.
Good to know
The requalification of the CDD into CDI in case of breach of contract exposes you to having to pay:
- Legal or conventional TFR;
- fee for notice;
- compensatory allowance for paid holidays;
- a retraining allowance which cannot be less than 1 month’s salary (Labour Code, art. L. 1245-2);
- damages if the judge deems the dismissal devoid of real and serious cause.
You also incur criminal penalties.
The only difference is the case in which the worker has deliberately refused to sign the employment contract in bad faith or with fraudulent intent.
The signed contract must then be delivered to the employee within 2 working days of hiring.
But how should the signature materialize?
CDD: The signature is not necessarily handwritten
In a recent case, an employee requested that her CDD be reclassified as a CDI because the contract was not hand signed but included a photocopied employer signature, which is neither an original signature nor an electronic signature and would have therefore they have no legal value.
The judges observe that the affixing of a signature in digitized format is not an electronic signature. But this signature is not without value. In the present case, it was common ground that the signature in question was that of the manager of the company and perfectly allowed its author to be identified, who was authorized to sign an employment contract. Therefore, the affixing of the digitized handwritten signature of the company manager did not equate to the absence of a signature. The redevelopment was refused.
Need help completing an error-free CDD? We recommend the documentation” Tissot Social Enterprise ACTIV which includes several procedures associated with the reason for using the CDD.
Court of Cassation, social chamber, 14 December 2022, n° 21-19.841 (the affixing of a digitized handwritten signature does not constitute the absence of a signature)
Anne-Lise Castell
Lawyer in social law and publisher at Tissot Editions
Graduated from the Master 2 DPRT of the Faculty of Law of Montpellier and expert in social law, I specialize in legal writing. Within Tissot Editions, I participate in the animation…
