In its judgements, the Supreme Court upheld the rulings by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal according to which Deliveroo falls within the scope of both the relevant collective bargaining agreement for professional road haulage (CLA) and the ministerial decree on mandatory participation in the industry pension. As a consequence, Deliveroo must comply with the CLA and pay contributions to the pension fund.
In the pension case, the Supreme Court dismissed Deliveroo's argument that the Decree only applies to motorised transport and held that bicycle delivery falls within the scope of the decree. The Supreme Court also rejected Deliveroo's argument that the Decree was invalid, as a ministerial decree on mandatory participation will be considered valid even if it becomes apparent that the representativeness requirement would not have been met if an employer had been taken into account where it had not been previously.
The Supreme Court also dismissed Deliveroo's appeal in relation to the scope of the CLA, however did not provide an explanation as to how it reached its judgement.
These rulings by the Supreme Court mark the final chapter of a lengthy legal dispute between Deliveroo, FNV and the pension fund. Now that the Supreme Court has held that Deliveroo riders are employees, Deliveroo will have to apply the CLA and pay pension contributions.
For more information, please see here the analysis provided by Stefan Sagel and Irina Timp of De Brauw's employment team litigated the CLA case before the Supreme Court on behalf of FNV.
The two judgements can be found in attachment to this article (in Dutch) below.