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18 December 2019
Employment & Immigration Spain
On 27 November 2019 the Madrid High Court of Justice ruled that riders for Glovo (a competitor of Deliveroo with a similar business model) are employees and are thus not self-employed.
Significantly, the court has changed its previous criteria after ruling on 19 September 2019 that Glovo riders were self-employed and had no employment relationship with the company.
Against this backdrop, the 27 November 2019 decision was taken in a plenary session, for the sake of legal certainty, and aimed to provide unified criteria for the Madrid High Court of Justice on the nature of relationships in the gig economy.
The Madrid High Court of Justice stated that Glovo riders are employees because:
This decision contributes to the existing case law on gig economy business models. Although the circumstances of each case must be individually analysed and the decision is not binding on other employment courts, this judgment will likely be considered as a relevant precedent in Spain on the gig economy.
As other courts have ruled in similar cases that riders who operate in the gig economy have no employment relationship with their company, this judgment will likely be appealed before the Supreme Court in an attempt to unify the case law on the nature of such relationships.
For further information on this topic please contact César Navarro at CMS Albiñana & Suarez de Lezo by telephone (+34 91 451 9300) or email (cesar.navarro@cms-asl.com). The CMS Albiñana & Suarez de Lezo website can be accessed at www.cms.law.
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