Spanish court upholds translator's dismissal after employer said clients had switched to AI translation, legal press reports
Noticias Trabajo and Confilegal report that a translation and interpreting company dismissed a translator on objective grounds in May 2024, after 17 years in the job. According to the dismissal letter as quoted by Confilegal, the sector had been transformed by new technologies reinforced by the appearance of AI, and part of the translations clients used to order had disappeared because clients now did them by their own means. Noticias Trabajo reports that the company cited a fall in revenue and losses of about 11,000 euros in 2023 and 16,471 euros in the first quarter of 2024. The translator challenged the dismissal, arguing that the losses were not proven and that choosing her over the other employee was arbitrary. The social court no. 3 of Valladolid rejected her claim, and the High Court of Justice of Castilla y Leon dismissed her appeal and upheld the dismissal as justified on economic grounds; a training firm's commentary dates that ruling to 15 September 2025. Noticias Trabajo says the ruling was not yet final. The courts' reasoning, as reported, rests on the company's accounts; how much of the decline the AI tools caused was the employer's account.
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 3 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 01/11/2026