Ruling on July 23, 2018
Authority: Court of Amsterdam
Parties: Deliveroo / Court of Amsterdam
Subject: Legal relationship between Deliveroo and meal delivery does not qualify as an employment contract.
Considerations: Deliveroo maintains a digital platform on which independent restaurants offer meals that consumers can order via that platform. The deliverers at Deliveroo used to work on the basis of a written fixed-term employment contract. As of November 2017, Deliveroo only concluded contracts of engagement with deliverers. As of July 2018, no delivery company was working on the basis of an employment contract. The plaintiff requests a declaratory judgment to the effect that he nevertheless has an employment contract, despite the fact that the contract states that it is a contract of engagement. To this end, he argues that he persforms work for Deliveroo in return for payment of wages, and therefore there is a relationship of authority. He also invokes the legal requirements of article 7:610a of the Civil Code, since he has worked more than 20 hours per month for Deliveroo over the last three preceding months. Deliveroo states that the intention of the parties was to enter into a commission contract, since the contract stipulates that it was entered into exclusively on the basis of a engagement contract, that the deliverer is free to carry out the work both personally and through another person and that the parties expressly do not intend to enter into an employment contract within the meaning of Article 7:610 of the Civil Code. Furthermore, it has been agreed that the delivery person is not obliged to carry out the work, that he carries it out entirely at his own discretion and without supervision by Deliveroo and that Deliveroo pays for each completed order. The deliverer shall not be compensated if he is unable to carry out his work as a result of illness or illness.
Legal question: Can the legal relationship between Deliveroo and its deliverers be qualified as an employment contract?
Ruling: The contract that the delivery person concluded with Deliveroo does not count as an employment contract, and the delivery person is therefore not employed by Deliveroo.