Melina Peer is a Senior Associate at our firm, specializing in labour and employment law.

Melina Peer advises on all aspects of labour and employment law. She specializes in contentious as well as non-contentious matters, pension law and industrial relations law. She also represents clients before the Austrian courts and authorities.

Melina is a graduate of the University of Vienna (Mag. iur. 2016) and the London School of Economics (LL.M. 2023). Prior to joining the firm, she clerked at Austrian courts and interned with various law firms. During her studies, she has gained professional experience as a student assistant at the University of Vienna (Department of Civil Procedure, Department of Labour and Social Security Law).

Melina works in English (fluent) and German (native).

Highlights of Melina’s work include:

  • Assisting an international animal welfare organisation with regard to all their Austrian employment law matters.

  • Assisting a leading Spanish producer of sanitary ceramics with a strong position in Switzerland and Austria in restructuring their Austrian entity. Advising the company on all employment matters, conducting negotiations with the trade unions and the works council on a social plan, preparation of notices of termination and planning of overall reduction in force.

  • Supporting a leading German multinational home improvement supplies retailing company in all employment related matters, including assistance in drawing-up a data-protection law compliant HR system and its implementation, in line with the respective requirements under Austrian employment law, for about 3,500 employees in Austria.
    Assisting the company in defending their current working time schemes against claims of numerous employees and the works council for introduction of a 4-day working week, based on the newly introduced collective bargaining agreement.
    Representing the company in court proceedings against one of its former employees claiming re-instatement of her employment based on allegedly socially unfair notice of termination and discriminatory treatment in connection with employment termination (Austrian courts).

  • Assisting a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company with all their day-to-day employment law issues.
    Representing the company against a former employee in a court proceeding (Austrian courts).
    Assisting the company with issues involving parental part time arrangements and works-council members, including the adjustment of their contractual roles within the entity.
    Supporting the company to duly conduct their works council elections in 2020 during the COVID pandemic.

  • Supporting a Finish elevator and escalator engineering company with regard to contractual agreements with members of the board of its Austrian subsidiary.

  • Representation of a UK financial service company against a former employee in the court proceedings on damage claims (Austrian courts).

  • Ongoing employment law support of the Austrian subsidiary of an international auditing company, including the amendment of the working time scheme, the termination of employment relationship and the representation in court against former employees.

  • Assisting Japanese owned Austrian manufacturer of fine bubble aeration systems in launching their new working time and flexi-time schemes.
    Supporting the client in defending the implementation of a surveillance system against the claims of the works council.

  • Assisting a German airline specialized in charter and medical repatriation flights with regard to contractual relationship with their pilots and medical crew.

  • Representation of an Austrian building services engineering company in two court procedures initiated by a former employee, challenging the notice of termination due to his status as a disabled person.

Are you interested in specific aspects of Melina’s recent work? Contact [email protected] for further reference cases.

Professional Experience

  • Senior Associate, Zeiler Floyd Zadkovich, Vienna/Austria (since 2023)
  • Junior Associate, Zeiler Floyd Zadkovich, Vienna/Austria (2020-2023)
  • Associate, zeiler.partners, Vienna/Austria (2018-2020)
  • Court Clerkship, Lower Austria and Vienna/Austria (2018)
  • Internship at the Austrian Administrative Court, Vienna/Austria (2017)
  • Internship at the Austrian Economic Chambers, Brussels/Belgium (2017)
  • Student Assistant at the Department of Civil Procedure, University of Vienna  (2016-2017)
  • Student Assistant at the Department of Labour Law and Law of Social Security Law, University of Vienna (2015-2016)

Education

  • LL.M. (Information Technology and Communications Law), London School of Economics and Political Science, London/UK (2023)
  • Austrian Bar Exam, Vienna/Austria (2021)
  • Magister Iuris, University of Vienna, Vienna/Austria (2016)
  • Disputes for Breakfast | Employment – 18 April 2024

    Disputes for Breakfast | Employment – 18 April 2024

    Update Arbeitsrecht | „Aktuelle Rechtsprechung und gesetzliche Neuerungen“

    With Hans Georg Laimer, Lukas Wieser & Melina Peer.

    Thursday, 18 April 2024
    09:00 CET | The ICON Vienna (Tower 17, Floor 14) Wiedner Gürtel 11, 1100 Vienna, Austria

    Register here

  • EU Parliament adopted AI Act | ZFZ Postcard Cases

    EU Parliament adopted AI Act | ZFZ Postcard Cases

    On 13 March 2024, after three years of negotiations, the European Parliament finally adopted the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), the first comprehensive statutory framework worldwide that regulates artificial intelligence systems.

    A provisional agreement on the adoption of the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) has already been reached in December 2023. Now, the AI Act has been formally passed by the European Parliament.

  • Disputes for Breakfast | Employment – 25 January 2024

    Disputes for Breakfast | Employment – 25 January 2024

    Update Arbeitsrecht – Spezial | “Finden & Binden von Mitarbeitern” – von der 4-Tage-Woche bis zur nachvertraglichen Konkurrenzklausel

    With Hans Georg Laimer, Lukas Wieser & Melina Peer.

    Thursday, 25 January 2024
    09:00 CET | The ICON Vienna (Tower 17, Floor 14) Wiedner Gürtel 11, 1100 Wien

    Register here

  • Congratulations to Rechtsanwältin Melina Peer for her admission to the Austrian Bar and promotion to Senior Associate!

    Congratulations to Rechtsanwältin Melina Peer for her admission to the Austrian Bar and promotion to Senior Associate!

    A huge congratulations is in order for our Melina Peer on her admission as an Attorney at Law (Rechtsanwältin) to the Austrian Bar!

  • MANZ Word plug-in project led by Andreas Tinhofer

    MANZ Word plug-in project led by Andreas Tinhofer

    Our partner Andreas Tinhofer is leading a team of eight employment law experts who are working on a project with MANZ’sche Verlags- und Universitätsbuchhandlung GmbH legal publisher in Austria.

  • What is the Data Subject Entitled to Under the GDPR Right to Obtain a “Copy”? | ZFZ Postcard Cases

    What is the Data Subject Entitled to Under the GDPR Right to Obtain a “Copy”? | ZFZ Postcard Cases

    According to Article 15(3) GDPR, a data subject has the right to obtain a copy of its processed personal data from the data controller.

  • IPDC2022

    IPDC2022

    To foster the exchange necessary for rethinking what the legal landscape could look like in a world dominated by automated, data-driven discovery, we brought together international legal experts and experts from science and technology. At the conference, the teams and individual speakers will present their approaches to topics including patent law and blackbox algorithms, protectability of AI generated inventions, access to and protection of datasets, algorithmic bias and more. Join the conference for introductions and updates on legal developments in a data-driven economy fueled by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

    Speakers include Ryan Abbott (University of Surrey and UCLA, DABUS project), Dr. Ulrike Till (WIPO), Philipp Homar (University of Linz), Jacques de Werra (University of Geneva), Alexandra Ebert and Paul Tiwald (MOSTLY AI), Żaneta Zemła – Pacud (Polish Academy of Sciences), Fabian Stanke (SONN Patentanwälte), Andreas Tinhofer (ZFZ), Matteo Aldeghi (MIT), Christoph Langer (IMBA), Melina Peer (ZFZ). The conference will be moderated by Alexander Zojer (ZFZ) and Lukas Hutter (biotop).

    This is an in-person event. Attendance is free of charge, but seating will be limited – for a guaranteed place at the conference, please make sure to register here.

  • EU Commission Presents Proposal of a New Data Act | ZFZ Postcard Cases

    EU Commission Presents Proposal of a New Data Act | ZFZ Postcard Cases

    The European Commission recently released the proposal of a new “Data Act”.

  • New Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework | ZFZ Postcard Cases

    New Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework | ZFZ Postcard Cases

    After more than a year of negotiations, the EU and the US announced that they reached an “agreement in principle” on a future Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework.

  • Andreas Tinhofer & Melina Peer Publish Article in Der Standard

    Andreas Tinhofer & Melina Peer Publish Article in Der Standard

    Mutual employment termination agreements can be a beneficial alternative to a unilateral termination for both the employer and the employee.