a. New or Expected Developments
The use of independent contractors represents a complex issue in relation to uncontrolled developments of information technologies. The question about how employment, civil and administrative law will react to future trends, which involve replacing traditional employment relationships with common civil law relations is being asked, not only within the Czech Republic, but globally as well. Such trends may have been medially provoked by “independent” UBER taxi drivers, but the real trends are much more deeply entrenched and are now expanding to almost any activity performed by an individual for remuneration.
With respect to general absence of clear unifying examples from the judiciary or labour inspection, which would doubt the use of independent contractors, it is expected that the use of independent contractors to perform a company´s tasks might further expand.
b. Recent Amendments to the Law
So far the latest relevant amendment to the employment law was implemented with effect from 1 January 2012. Since then the replacement of an employment contract by a civil law contract while factually meeting the usual criteria of labour employment officially represents an administrative offence, for which the bodies responsible for the inspection of work may impose on the factual employer a fine up to CZK 10,000,000 (EUR 370,000), but not less than CZK 50,000 (EUR 1,900).
The introduction of the new Civil Code, which came into effect on 1 January 2014, represents the latest change in the field of civil law. The Civil Code is liberal and does not prohibit the use of independent contractors. The introductory provisions stipulate that unless expressly prohibited by a statute, persons can stipulate rights and duties by way of exclusion from a statute; stipulations contrary to good morals, public order or the law concerning the status of persons, including the right to protection of personality rights, are prohibited.
Since 2012/2014 there have not been any relevant amendments to the law regulating the status of independent contractors and at the moment there are not even any new amendments being prepared.