The Supreme Court bars justifying a furlough scheme with unaudited accounts: unilateral balance sheets lack reliability
The Labour Chamber sets doctrine: unilaterally drawn-up accounts without external audit do not prove the economic cause of a furlough scheme.
Accounts drawn up unilaterally by the company that have not been audited lack the reliability and accuracy needed to prove the economic cause of a furlough scheme. So holds the Labour Chamber of the Supreme Court in a judgment of 7 October 2026, with Justice López Parada as rapporteur, setting doctrine on the evidential requirement in temporary employment regulation files, according to elEconomista.
The burden of proof lies with the company
The doctrine is clear on two levels. First, it falls to the employer to prove objectively the economic cause invoked. Second, balance sheets or financial reports prepared unilaterally by the company itself are insufficient if they lack an independent external audit.
The judgment adds a precision relevant to labour departments: an internally produced technical report does not amount to solid expert evidence if it is not ratified at trial and subjected to contradiction between the parties. The assessment of the accounts belongs to the trial court under the rules of sound discretion, and refusing probative effect to unaudited balance sheets is a legitimate and reasoned exercise of the judging function.
An evidential framework with legal support
To ground its decision, the Chamber recalls that the assessment of mercantile accounting corresponds to the trial court under the rules of sound discretion, pursuant to article 31 of the Commercial Code and article 384 of the Civil Procedure Act. There is no closed rule automatically voiding every unaudited balance sheet: what the Supreme Court endorses is that the trial judge may deny them effect when they offer no reliability guarantees, provided this is done in a reasoned way.
The case: full suspension for 122 workers
The facts start from the decision of June 2025 by a security company, Ironlock Sistemas, to suspend 100 per cent of the working day of 122 employees for one year. The company had acquired in March 2024 the productive unit of the insolvent INV Sistemas by order of Commercial Court number 2 of Madrid.
To justify the file, the company produced 2024 accounts showing a negative result of 1.5 million euros and 2025 statements with losses of 246,745.86 euros, also alleging a 24 per cent drop in turnover compared with 2022. The unions UGT, CCOO and USO filed a collective dispute claim and the National Court declared the file unjustified in a judgment of 11 November 2025, holding that the unaudited accounts had no probative value. The Supreme Court now confirms that conclusion.
Source: elEconomista (29 October 2026).
Related links
Fuentes
- eleconomista.es. Accessed 2 November 2026.
The specific data in this article come from the official sources cited.
