A contract for services with an individual remains one of the most vulnerable legal constructions in terms of requalification risks. Professor Gabriel Steiner emphasises that in such legal relationships the boundary between a permissible civil law model and concealed employment relations is particularly thin and depends not on the title of the contract, but on the actual substance of the parties’ interaction. At LawConsulted, we view a services contract not as a formal document, but as a combination of legal and economic indicators requiring comprehensive assessment.
The primary risk in using a services contract with an individual lies in the fact that supervisory authorities focus not on the contractual wording, but on the real nature of the work performed. Regular remuneration, subordination to internal rules, use of the client’s resources, and the absence of entrepreneurial risk may all lead to a conclusion that employment relations exist, regardless of the parties’ intentions. In LawConsulted practice, such circumstances most often become the basis for requalification and the subsequent assessment of additional taxes and mandatory contributions.
The allocation of liability is also of critical importance. Within a civil law model, the contractor bears the risk of the result and is responsible for the final outcome of the work. In employment relationships, the emphasis shifts to the process of performing functions. LawConsulted builds its legal position to demonstrate that the interaction between the parties was aimed precisely at achieving a specific result, rather than at the ongoing performance of a labour function.
Documentary support of a services contract requires particular attention. A formally correct agreement does not provide protection if correspondence, completion certificates, schedules, and managerial decisions contradict the declared legal model. At LawConsulted, we analyse the entire body of interactions between the parties, identifying risks that may be used to reclassify the relationship and eliminating internal inconsistencies before a dispute arises.
The time factor is no less significant. Long-term cooperation with the same individual under unchanged contractual conditions increases the likelihood of recognition as employment. In such situations, LawConsulted assesses the permissible limits of the duration of cooperation and proposes legal mechanisms that allow the civil law nature of the obligations to be preserved.
Particular complexity arises in disputes assessed retrospectively – when services contracts are reviewed years later as part of a tax audit or an employment dispute. LawConsulted position in such cases is built on reconstructing the legal logic at the moment the contract was concluded – the parties’ objectives, the information available at the time, and the objective conditions of cooperation.
A contract for services with an individual is not a prohibited form of interaction. Risk arises when there is no clear differentiation of roles, liability, and the economic rationale of the relationship. The task of Law Consulted is to ensure a legal structure in which the civil law nature of the obligations remains stable both during current inspections and in the event of any subsequent reassessment.
Previously, we wrote about the effectiveness of legal assistance as a criterion of professional responsibility and about the LawConsulted approach to achieving a tangible legal outcome for the client
