On the home page of Deliveroo France will be displayed for one month, the following mention: “SAS Deliveroo France, taken in the person of its legal representatives between April 2015 and December 2017, was condemned for the offense of concealed work to the payment of a criminal fine of 375,000 euros and to compensate for the damages suffered by the delivery men who actually happened to be his employees. » This publication, of immediate application, was demanded, Tuesday, April 19, by the Paris Criminal Court, whose judgment constitutes the first criminal decision on the “uberization” of work.
The court considered that the organization set up by the company over a period running from 2015 to 2017 did indeed constitute a willful violation of labor law, through the use of thousands of couriers who were officially independent but, in reality, subordinated to the platform. These deliverers, believe the judges, were only“an adjustment variable that makes it possible to have an appropriate fleet that is responsive to the number of orders recorded each day. Only the great flexibility generated by the criminal practices committed and imposed ensured the sustainability of the model. » A system that allowed Deliveroo to evade, behind “a fictitious legal dressing » the social security contributions that the company should have paid to the State.
The judges followed in full the requisitions pronounced on March 16 by the prosecutor Céline Ducournau. In addition to Deliveroo France, two of its former managers, Adrien Falcon and Hugues Decosse, were sentenced to a one-year suspended sentence and a fine of 30,000 euros, along with a ban on running a business for five years. . A four-month suspended sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros was retained against Elie de Moustier. The company and the three defendants were also ordered jointly and severally to pay damages for all the couriers who had instituted civil proceedings – approximately 120 – who were awarded sums of 1,000 to 4,000 euros in respect of their civil or moral prejudice. They will also have to pay damages to the CGT, SUD, Union Syndicale Solidaire and Syndicat National des Transports Légères, as well as to the URSSAF.
Constraints imposed
The judgment sweeps away the argument supported throughout the hearing by the defendants, according to which Deliveroo France would only be a “connection platform” and not a service company. The judges note that, unlike other platforms for the sale of goods (Vinted or Ebay) or the supply of services (Airbnb), which connect two natural persons in the final transaction, the organization of Deliveroo excludes any direct contact between the restaurateur and the end customer, the platform taking care of the delivery.
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