A French court has given suspended prison sentences to two former executives of online food delivery company Deliveroo for not classifying riders as employees, which resulted in the underpayment of payroll taxes.
On April 19 the 31st Chamber of the Judicial Court in Paris sentenced Adrien Falcon and Hugues Decosse to a year in prison, which it immediately suspended, and fined them each €30,000 for using “undeclared labor.” A third Deliveroo executive, Elie de Moustier, received a suspended sentence of four months and was ordered to pay €10,000. The court also fined Deliveroo €375,000 and ordered the company to pay €50,000 in damages to each of five labor unions that were plaintiffs in the case.
The Court said U.K.-based Deliveroo hid behind “a fictitious legal cover” to avoid the payment of payroll taxes, Le Monde reported April 21
Reuters reported that the company said it disagrees with the ruling and will appeal it.
In December 2021 a Belgian labor court rejected a petition to reclassify most Deliveroo couriers as employees, which would have required the online food delivery company to pay social security and tax obligations for their services. The court ruled that the presumption of an employment contract between the couriers and the company was outweighed by the lack of legal subordination of the former to the latter.
Deliveroo's victory was its second in a European court that year. In June 2021 an appeals court in the United Kingdom upheld lower court rulings that the company's couriers are self-employed.