What Drafting a Director's Contract Means
A director's employment contract is the most numerically loaded drafting task in the Georgian Labour Code: each of its clauses is tied to a specific article, and each article carries specific numbers. The first question is the term. Where the employment relationship exceeds 1 month, the contract requires written form. A fixed-term contract — unless the term is 1 year or more — may be concluded only on a ground listed by law: work of a specific volume, seasonal work, a temporarily increased volume, replacement of a temporarily absent employee, subsidised remuneration, or another objective circumstance.
The lawfulness of a fixed term is also tested by numbers: where the term exceeds 30 months — or the relationship, through consecutively concluded fixed-term contracts, exceeds 30 months — the contract is deemed open-ended. Consecutiveness is defined precisely: continuation of the existing contract immediately upon expiry, or conclusion of a new one within 60 days of expiry. The exception is the start-up: for an entrepreneur within 48 months of state registration the restriction does not apply, though within that frame a fixed-term contract cannot be shorter than 3 months.
Content — the Essential-Terms Frame
The contract's content follows the Code's list of essential terms: information about the parties, the start date and duration, working and rest time, the workplace, the position and the description of the work, remuneration and the manner of payment, the overtime remuneration procedure, leave, the termination procedure and, where relevant, the provisions of collective agreements. In a director's contract each of these items is written with particular precision, because in a top-manager's position every term is a potential subject of dispute.
Probation and Liability Clauses
Probation operates for directors too, under strict limits: it is possible only once, for not more than 6 months, and only in written form. Work performed during probation is paid; within the period the employer may at any time conclude a fixed-term or open-ended contract or terminate the existing one, and the general termination-procedure requirements do not apply to that termination unless the contract provides otherwise — remuneration is paid for the time worked.
The material-liability clauses matter especially for a top manager: a written contract may define the type and scope of the employee's individual liability where it follows from the specifics of the work; a full material-liability contract is concluded with an adult employee who stores, processes, sells, transports or uses in production the valuables entrusted to them — a standard element of a director's contract.