Unduly paid temporary unemployment benefits: recovery procedure

If temporary unemployment benefits were unduly paid to a worker, the ONEm/RVA can recover them from the employer.

Undue payment of temporary unemployment benefits occurs when the employer, in order not to provide employment to a worker, wrongfully invokes:

• a case of force majeure (manual or non-manual workers),
• a technical fault (manual workers),
• bad weather (manual workers), 
• or lack of work for economic reasons (manual or non-manual workers).

A law of 26 December 2022 allows the ONEm/RVA to recover from the employer rather than from the worker the benefits unduly paid to the latter.

The procedure is as follows:

• the employer must pay the worker concerned the normal wage for the days during which there was no suspension of the performance of the employment contract for one of the reasons mentioned above;
• the ONEm/RVA has the possibility to recover from the employer the gross amounts unduly paid to the worker;
• the employer may deduct from the net wage due to the worker the net amount of the benefits he must pay to the ONEm/RVA.

This measure enters into force on 1 January 2023, but may relate to benefits that were unduly paid from 1 July 2022.

Source: programme law of 26 December 2022 (art. 53 to 56), Belgian Official Gazette of 30 December 2022.