ApplySymbologyFromLayer_management error: .LYR file made in 10.2 working with 10.1?

I'm working on a python add-in which includes a .LYR file with specific symbology. I use ApplySymbologyFromLayer_management to load a shapefile with this .LYR symbology in the ArcMap TOC. This works perfectly on my own testing PC with ArcGIS 10.2. But when I ask a test user to try the add-in on ArcGIS 10.1 the following error is returned:

I can't easily debug this problem on the test user system and therefore, as a first step, I would like to find out if a .LYR file made in 10.2 should be backwards compatible with 10.1?

Thanks in advance!