VBAR Act finally submitted to the House of Representatives⚖️

What's different now?

Previously, the law was structured as follows: there were arguments in favour of employment (the so-called W elements), arguments in favour of self-employment (the Z elements), and only in the event of a tie were the entrepreneurship factors (the OP elements) taken into account.

But then the Uber ruling came along, which ruled that this “ranking” of factors was not actually the intention. As a result, the legislator had to go back to the drawing board.

And now?

Now, the above test has been replaced by a W test on the one hand and a Z-contract test on the other. This means that a “tie” is no longer required to determine whether entrepreneurship is involved. All circumstances of the case are taken into account immediately.

The explanatory notes to the Act do describe an interesting case for practical application. If you replace a sick employee as an interim manager, you are autonomous in your work, but if there is some degree of guidance regarding the content or organisation of your work if “production” falls behind, do you adhere to internal guidelines and rules and are performance reviews held with you? According to the new rules, you then run the risk of being considered to have an employment contract, even if you work independently, for multiple clients per year and you run entrepreneurial risk. After the summer, the bill will be debated in the House of Representatives and then it will have to go to the Senate. It remains to be seen whether this bill will be passed. Especially now that a number of MPs are working on another bill, the “Self-Employed Persons Act”, which is also intended to remove the ambiguities in practice regarding self-employed persons versus employees.
 
Are you unsure about using self-employed persons in your company? Or would you like to know more about the legal risks? Please contact Dennis Oud, Tim van Riel, Elke Hofman or Tessa Sipkema.