Employer’s safety obligation: Could the Abidjan ruling have been applicable in Senegal?

10 November 2020

In all labor laws, the safety obligation is one of the most important obligations. In France, this obligation is wide-ranging and also applies in the context of an employee’s expatriation. And this, even outside working hours. This was confirmed by the Abidjan decision.

In 2004, a French employee expatriated to the Ivory Coast by the company Sanofi Pasteur was assaulted in a context where she was not performing her professional activity. The Court of Appeal, seized in first instance, had condemned the employer on the basis of the latter’s failure to respect the safety obligation arising from the employment contract. It concluded that the employee was the victim of an assault while she was, because of her employment contract, in a place particularly exposed to risk. Thus, according to this case law, the mere fact of expatriating employees is sufficient to engage the employer’s liability, regardless of whether they went voluntarily or at the employer’s request to a place exposed to risk.

What about Senegal?

Outside working hours, is the employer responsible for the safety of the expatriate employee? There is a legal blur in Senegal regarding this issue. There are no specific provisions relating to the safety of the Senegalese worker “displaced outside his usual residence”.

However, Article 172 provides that: “The employer is required…to undertake collective or individual protective measures to prevent damage to the safety and health of workers…”. And this provision is broad enough to be applied to the case of a Senegalese expatriate who has suffered an accident outside of his working hours.