Legal Doctrinal and Sectoral Problems of Digital Platform Contracts in the European Union Resulting in Conflicts Between Workers and Platforms

Abstract

Platform contracts are a central element of digital work and therefore present a number of legal challenges, in particular with regard to the classification of the legal relationship based on them. In this paper, the two forms of platform work, work on demand via apps and crowdwork, are analysed, with a separate analysis which highlights legal doctrinal inconsistencies. In doing so, we will also discuss the related problematic and varied jurisprudence. This jurisprudence illustrates the complex dispute between the worker and the platform company. Finally, the new Platform Directive of the European Union, which may not hold the key to a real solution to the problem of setting up an appropriate legal qualification system for platform workers, will be analysed. The study is based on the desk-research method, presenting national and EU legislation and case law through qualitative analysis.

1. Introduction

In recent years, the so called digital platform contracts have become increasingly common, which are not directly presented to the workers selected to fulfil orders, but are presented via a digital platform, disguising and concealing their real natural or legal identity. This trend is going against secure employment regulations [1]. It is as if we are at a Venetian masked ball, where, in the great hustle and bustle, both those who are asked to dance and those who are invited to dance cover their faces and, through them, their real identity, with a mask [2]. This is also the case with this type of contract, where the fuss is getting bigger and bigger, like the carnival ballrooms of the city of lagoons. As in the Venetian ballroom dance, the range of contract types offered by the law as digital platform contracts is very wide, which is perhaps only limited by human rights [3]. For this reason, a legal–dogmatic approach to digital platform contracts seems necessary, which this paper aims to help establish [4] (pp. 3–5). This is necessary because the growing number of platform cases shows that there is a deep conflict between workers and the companies providing work through platforms [5]. As such, we will distinguish between two specific types of digital platform contracts: work on demand via apps and crowdwork, analysing both independently on the basis of Hungarian and international literature. In addition, we will also examine judicial practice, drawing attention to critical points, as well as international practice. Finally, the adopted Platform Directive of the European Union will be briefly analysed, against which the high expectations initially raised may not be fulfilled in the end, i.e., it may become a missed opportunity, which will, once again, put the baton of regulatory obligation in the hands of national legislators. Regarding the methodology, this paper used a legal–dogmatic approach, which is standard in civil and labour law research. The goal was to understand how contracts in platform economy—especially crowdwork and work on demand via apps—fit into existing legal categories, and whether they require rethinking from a regulatory perspective. The research starts by defining and distinguishing the two main types of platform work, drawing from EU-level documents, as well as academic classifications. This typology helps identify key legal features like subordination, autonomy, and economic dependence. The analysis focuses on Hungarian law, including the Labour Code, civil law rules, and relevant national case law, while also engaging with EU law, particularly Directive (EU) 2024/414, on platform work. A comparative element was added by examining the German concept and reflecting on the different national jurisdictions. Alongside legal texts and court decisions, the paper relies on academic literature, both Hungarian and international, to explore current interpretations and possible reforms. In areas where the law is unclear, interpretative tools such as analogies and doctrinal reasoning were used to assess how platform work might best be classified. Overall, the article combines legal interpretation with comparative insights to propose a more coherent and fair regulatory framework for digital platform work.

2. The Emergence of Two Types of Digital Platform Contracts

Digitalisation affects all areas of law, including economic and classical private law relationships in civil law, employment law (including public service law), and the form of unilateral tendering [4] (pp. 3–5). Digital work may take place in both civil law and employment law contexts by means of an electronic platform owned by one or more legal entities, either in the form of an offer, invitation, or instruction to one or more natural or legal persons to carry out an activity [5] (pp. 1–3). If it is an instruction and it is addressed to a natural person, it is an employment or self-employment relationship; if it is addressed to a legal person, it is a long-term principal–subcontractor or contractual or de facto dominant–servant corporate or group relationship by electronic means. If it is in the context of a work activity, the obligation to carry out the task falls on the addressee, who is a natural person. Since the subject of these digital contracts is almost invariably an activity, the performance of a task is linked to a workplace or workspace associated with a digital platform. The term “digital workplace” is also a legal category that helps cover working conditions that no longer take place in a traditional framework; technically the contractor or the employee receives the requirements or instructions via some kind of software or application [6] (pp. 651–652). Often, the delivery itself is carried out through the software. This construct has been the subject of a wide variety of approaches in private economic and labour law, using the term virtual work or internet-based work, a conceptual diversity that makes academic dialogue difficult [7] (pp. 6–7). However, the description associated with platform work (especially in EU documents), which involves a very large number of people, can, perhaps, be considered general. In platform work, in platform economy, paid work is organised through a digital platform; it is always either a bilateral relationship that starts with one party but can end with a number of recipients on the other side, or a tripartite relationship; and in both types of contract, the tasks are defined in a targeted way, and in the latter, the work is usually broken down into sub-tasks and the service is provided according to the client’s needs [8] (p. 29).

Therefore, digital platform contracts are considered in the literature to fall into two broad categories, one of which is “crowdwork” and the other “work-on-demand via apps”. The latter is the more easily understood structure, which we ourselves encounter a lot in our country. These are offline tasks that are assigned via an app, such as driving, and delivering people and food, as well as childcare, house cleaning, or preparing for a large reception. This has been encountered in Hungarian labour jurisprudence, and there is mainly a labour law discourse here, given the physical nature of the work, which requires the strengthening of social protection for persons who are otherwise considered contractors or agents. Crowdwork, on the other hand, is a unilateral declaration of rights which, if it is not addressed to those who are not dependent on the platform that is awarding the solution, but to everyone, creates a situation similar to that of the invitation to tender or the award of a prize. If, on the other hand, the platform gives instructions to those in an employment relationship, the crowdwork becomes an employment relationship [9] (p. 1).

3. The Crowdwork as a Private Economic Institution and as an Institution of Labour Law

Crowdwork has expanded considerably in recent years, and the main driver behind it is the private sector. Currently, companies in the technology and Internet sectors are making greatest use of crowdsourcing [10] (pp. 16–17). Based on crowdwork, digital platforms can post a solution to a problem, which can be distributed by the platform, and if one or more informed people solve it, they can communicate it to the platform, which can then evaluate, accept, implement it (realise it), and reward it [11]. This way the crowdsourcing businesses can achieve 24 h productivity, and it can be also useful for crowdworkers in many ways, e.g., it combats youth unemployment and might encourage women’s participation in the labour market [10] (p. 18). Here, certain tasks and sub-tasks are carried out exclusively through online platforms. There is usually an external, unspecified crowd where the potential contractor who undertakes carrying out the task is located; however, in crowdwork, the workers may not only be individuals, but a group of natural persons with certain knowledge and skills, working to solve a coherent problem [12] (pp. 34–35). For this reason, such self-employed workers can also be considered teleworkers, subcontractors, or job-sharing workers in some respects. We, therefore, propose a specific extension of these forms of legal relations to them, so that they are also covered by the labour law [12] (p. 36). This already means a significant narrowing of the circle of recipients, which is defined as a general rule, and Tamás Gyulavári, in his academic doctoral thesis, points out that often the platform, or more precisely the company behind the platform, targets its own employees with a one-sided digital platform appeal [13]. In this case, crowdwork is an employment relationship if it contains instructions, but if it does not contain instructions, it is a relationship similar to a private tender [14] (pp. 53–54). Often, platforms ask for ideas on a plan or project. But this can be for the organisation of any action for innovation, i.e., know-how, patenting, breeding seeds or propagating material, any intellectual creation or idea related to an intellectual creation, or the production of a whole work or a solution to a problem. In this case, and even if someone or someone’s response to the platform’s call for a solution is a response, the respondent can claim moral recognition for their person, and can produce and sell the patented product themselves, or sell or lease the right to exploit the patent itself, as can the plant breeder and the propagator of propagating material in agriculture [15] (pp. 161–162). All inventors and patent holders have the right to do this, even if they have received a response from the platform. However, by virtue of the fact that it responded to the platform’s invitation and not only answered the mere question, but also made an offer to buy or lease the patent right, the respondent to the platform’s invitation is bound by the offer for the specified period. This applies to any response to a platform call made on a crowdwork basis, even if the response to the maturity of the idea does not reach the level of copyright or technical intellectual innovation. It is based on the premise that, before the advent of digital platform contracts and, in particular, crowdwork, regarding the creation, design or invention, creation or creation of a scientific result, the call for proposals for the award of a prize has to include the prize, and the award must be paid to the successful applicant. If more than one applicant qualifies, the order of priority shall be determined by the awarding authority. At the same time, when the call for proposals is launched, the awarding authority determines the number of proposals to be awarded on the basis of the order established by itself or by the committee assessing the proposals. However, this should be specified when the tender is launched. Now, as far as crowdwork is concerned, it is very similar to a prize, in that it is much more flexible than a call for prizes, and the platform that puts a question up for air does not have to comply with such requirements, does not have to promise a prize to the solution submitters, and does not have to specify the amount of the prize. Therefore, the situation is reversed for crowdwork. Here, the respondent to the crowdwork call has to communicate the demand for payment for the information or idea or proposal they provide. If they fail to do so, a legitimate claim will be very difficult and almost impossible to prove without success [16] (pp. 1–2). A typical case of this might be, for example, where an idea that is patentable as an invention in itself is communicated by the inventor of the idea to a platform in response to a platform call, and is submitted to the patent office as the inventor of the idea or inventor. During the patent procedure, the disclosure process gives the patent holder the opportunity to successfully demonstrate their inventive quality. If they fail to do so, they will be deemed to have failed in any further attempts. At the same time, there is a great potential for backloading in crowdwork. An idea can trigger a whole process of construction and fulfilment. Idea generators, therefore, deserve to be rewarded for their ideas, which are offered for exploitation and can be built on, even if they do not reach the level of an invention or know-how, but contribute to the development of an invention, patent or know-how. But even in this case, respondents contacted by the platform must communicate their claim to the platform with their address and contact details. This could result in a strong conflict between the parties. Realistically, it is necessary to note that likely, “ideas” and processes that contain a higher level of novelty will not appear in the “cowdwork circulation”. If only because the result of an invention or other intellectual creation at or approaching the level of invention or other intellectual creation is produced by persons skilled in the relevant field and aware of its value and the method of exploitation, it provides the creator of the result with adequate financial and moral rewards. Therefore, traditional and well-established substantive and procedural rules of patent protection or copyright protection for other intellectual works are invoked. However, “semi-skilled” people working as employees or self-employed in a given or closely related field can be persuaded to publish their ideas and results without any equivalent remuneration [15] (pp. 164–165). With appropriate interpretation of the law extending protection in this area, the EU Directive 2024/414 (COB), which aims to ensure social protection for platform workers, could provide adequate protection. The reason for this conditional formulation is that the Directive focuses on the social protection of platform workers on the other form of electronic platform contract, work on demand via apps, given that this is currently the more common form. However, it is expected that crowdwork will also become more common in the future. It would therefore be appropriate, in light of the case law on the broad interpretation of crowdwork, to supplement the Directive de lege ferenda so that it is clearly applicable to crowdwork in EU Member States’ enforcement.

4. Work on Demand via Apps as a Civil and Labour Law Institution

The gig economy includes crowdwork and work on demand via apps. It is easier to define these forms in relation to each other. In De Stefano’s taxonomy, crowdwork is work carried out through online platforms that connect an unlimited number of organisations, businesses, and individuals via the internet, enabling the global connectivity of clients and workers. The nature of the tasks performed on crowdwork platforms can vary considerably. Very often, they are micro-tasks: highly parcelled out, often menial and monotonous activities that still require some judgement beyond the understanding of artificial intelligence (e.g., tagging photos, assessing emotions or the appropriateness of a website or text, filling in surveys). In work on demand via apps, jobs related to traditional work activities such as delivery, cleaning, and running errands, but also forms of office work, are offered and allocated via mobile apps. The companies operating such applications usually intervene in the definition of minimum quality standards for the service, as well as in the selection and management of the workforce. A significant difference lies in the location of the work performed: in the former, in the case of mass work, the work can be performed from anywhere, while in the latter, the performance is location-specific. Therefore, the two forms present different challenges for labour market actors in terms of their labour law or civil law issues [17] (p. 3).

Focusing on the category of work on demand via apps, the nature and legal characteristics of the work carried out in this category are not homogeneous [17] (p. 3). There are clear circumstances, such as the fact that many legal acts, such as the offer and its acceptance, take place in the digital space, thus allowing for speed. Human labour, thus, becomes an ever-available service, dominated by flexibility. The activity itself is traditional (cleaning, transport), so it may be unusual for the worker to be aware that the flexibility brought about by outsourcing and digitalisation may lead to problems of legal professionalism [18] (p. 271). In general, we see that gig economy workers are self-employed. However, we are witnessing an ongoing legal battle over the employment status of these workers, which shows a serious conflict between workers and companies [17]. More and more lawsuits are being brought all over the world to bring this form of work under the protective net of labour law, given the vulnerable position of the workers involved. Many cases can be found in the case law of Western European countries, whether we look at French, Belgian, German, or Dutch courts. But if we look at Eastern Europe, we see that only one platform judgment has been delivered up until 2024 in Hungary, with case no. BH. 2024.6. This case is particularly important as it is the first and only Eastern European case on platform work, and on its relation to labour law. In this case, the courts first classified the platform worker as self-employed, then as an employee, and finally as self-employed in the review procedure of the Curia, who was performing a fixed platform job of the so called “on-location work on demand via apps” type, the purpose of which was to deliver food. This contradictory process may have been the result of the relevant Hungarian legislation and its loopholes. If we look at the Hungarian legal environment in particular, we can conclude the following. The Labour Code (Act I of 2012 on the Labour Code) does not contain specific rules on the classification and qualification of employment relationships, but it does define the concept of employment relationship (Article 42) and the rules on the rights and obligations of the parties (e.g., Articles 45, 52, 86). On the basis of these sections, the labour courts (now defunct as a separate court) have developed case law on the classification of employment relationships in recent decades extensive, which serves as a basis for the delimitation of employment contracts and civil law contracts (self-employment) [19]. This case law was summarised in guidelines drawn up by the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Finance in 2005. This regulation has not been in force since 2012 but is still followed by the judiciary, and in the above-mentioned case, the judges relied on the primary and secondary qualifying circumstances set out in it. Such primary qualifying circumstances are the occupational nature of the activity, the personal obligation to work, the reciprocal employment and availability obligation, and the hierarchical subordination. Secondary qualifying circumstances are the employer’s right to direct and control the work, determine the working hours, determine the place of work, provide work equipment and materials, ensure conditions which do not endanger health and safety, and pay wages. Consequently, the Hungarian mixed test, as Gyulavári and Sipka call it, includes the usual civil law and common law labour law tests, but the economic dependence test is absent from both the rules in force, or about to be repealed, and the case law [20]. By way of comparison, a brief overview of German classification practice shows that the category of a person with a status similar to that of an employee (or the employee-like person) is currently open to platform workers. This category opens up labour law protection to self-employed workers who are economically dependent and have social protection needs. Nevertheless, the classification of platform workers (in particular those working in crowdwork) as persons with a status comparable to that of an employee is also a matter of debate in German law. Economic dependence on a single client requires that the income received from that client must, in any case, account for a significant part (more than 50%) of the platform worker’s income. In practice, however, this is not always the case, particularly when the platform work is not remunerated by the platform (direct platform work, which is typically found in the case of crowdwork in the above grouping) [21]. However, in the case of indirect platform work, economic dependence on the platform operator can be taken into account and may be realised. Thus, in German law, economic dependence will be the primary factor to be examined, which, if we look at the Hungarian test, is a completely missing test.

If we look at the origins of the emergence of work on demand via apps, we have to see that, in terms of legal doctrine, a new form of contract has emerged from the application of two separate contracts together. In legal doctrine terms, one side of this type of contract is rooted in the agency contract, while the other side consists of the actual activity of an intermediary, whether it is a contract of agency, commission or service, or work on an agency basis. The digital platform takes up the customer’s wish to have a person to provide the service they wish to be provided, to act as an intermediary. The digital platform sends one of the persons connected to it who is willing to provide the service requested by the customer to the worker, who then provides the service requested. Unlike the classical bargaining contract and the subsequent activity contract, the latter is not concluded by the customer, since the activity of the service provider is part of the supply of the service requested by the customer from the digital platform. It can be illustrated with an example. When someone orders a taxi from a taxi company, the taxi company or the dispatching service of the taxi company takes the order and assigns a free taxi driver to fulfil the order. This applies to any case for a contract for the provision of services. If the taxi driver is self-employed, when the customer pays them after the passenger transport has been carried out, they have a contract of employment with them. The taxi driver, on the other hand, bills the dispatching service for the dispatching. This is the case even if the taxi driver is not employed by the taxi company but is a partner in a partnership, a so called “socius”. If, on the other hand, the taxi driver is employed by the taxi company, they carry out the transport of passengers as a work-related activity and are obliged to pay the taxi company’s or company’s cashier the fee paid by the customer. Already now, in the case where the taxi company operates as a digital platform, it is work on demand via apps, and this is the so called Uber passenger transport or ride-hailing, where several people are available to the Uber platform to transport or ride. To summarise, a service contract combined with an intermediary is just like a lease contract, which is also a combination of two separate contracts.

5. Different Perspectives of Companies and Workers in Their Efforts to Make These Two Types of Contracts Independent and Their Impact on Judicial Practice

The theoretical approach discussed so far is of little practical relevance to either the entrepreneur–employer or the posted employee side in terms of earning an income and earning a living due to its strong legal theory. However, for both sides, this is important for both types of contracts, whether they are sui generis civil law contracts or whether they remain within the framework of the employment contract and the employment relationship. For both types of contracts, different aspects have to be taken into account.

In the case of crowdwork, digital platform contractors are generally better off if the task specification and the response to it via the platform do not constitute a tender or a prize, particularly if the platform is addressed to a narrow group of employees or to an available layer of employees who are in an employment relationship with the platform. In particular, if someone in this targeted employment group proposes or provides a solution through the platform that can be used by the platform, the platform may consider it a job function and will not provide any additional remuneration other than a salary. It may, but is not obliged to, provide it retroactively. However, if the platform requests an idea as a prize through the platform, it is considered a call for proposals and must be rewarded in various forms. It is, therefore, simpler for the platform to disassociate itself from the unilateral but retaliatory nature of the prize, and treat it as an employment relationship.

Conversely, if the platform is addressed by a group of persons employed by the platform, the persons in an employment relationship have an interest in the platform address being treated as a prize and the person who performs the requested task not being treated as an employment obligation but receiving a separate remuneration for it. In this case, it is in the interest of the employing party that the crowdwork, with its fee-based content, should be considered a separate contract, independent of the employment relationship.

In crowdwork, there is therefore a struggle between two opposing trends. The entrepreneurial profit side, which is the target, tries to push crowdwork towards the employment relationship, while the target side tries to push it towards a non-employment prize.

In the case of work on demand via apps, it is in the interest of the contractors who operate the electronic platform that takes orders and fulfils them that the electronic platform workers work by taking orders and fulfilling them “internally” by outsourcing, i.e., that both stages of the contract, taking orders and fulfilling them by outsourcing, are contracts of employment or contracts for services without an employment relationship. In order to avoid the payment of on-call wages to a platform worker who is repeatedly called out by the platform for the period of availability, a contractor or agency or one-off casual contract is concluded for the performance of a single work activity when the worker is called out; if the platform contracts the platform worker for a longer period, for repeated call-outs, and does not wish to pay for the period of availability, it allows the platform worker to perform work for others. Platform contractors who think this way will, in a fair way, classify both phases of this type of contract as contracting and/or commissioning. At the same time, however, there is a layer of unlimited profit-hungry platform workers who expect the platform workers available to them to be available for free and not to do work for others during the period of availability. For them, this zero-hours contract would be the most favourable, which has provoked widespread protest from employer advocacy organisations not only in the UK, but also in other countries in continental Europe, where such an arrangement has been experimented with by digital platform companies, as well as traditional employers [22] (pp. 7–11). The platform employer side has a vested interest in platform employment taking place in the context of an employment relationship, certainly, but also in spite of this.

This is the purpose of the Directive in the social protection of platform workers in the EU, which provides for a rebuttable presumption (praesumptio iuris) that platform workers are in an employment relationship with the platform that employs them, rather than a self-employment or agency relationship. In the original proposal, this presumption defined five indicators, at least two of which, if present, would prove the existence of an employment relationship by virtue of the subordinate nature of the employment. Individual case-by-case assessment remains necessary. The final text of the Directive contains slightly different rules [23]. Article 5(2) of the Directive requires EU Member States to establish an effective rebuttable presumption of employment relationship, which provides procedural relief for platform workers. Member States shall further ensure that the legal presumption does not have the effect of increasing the burden of requirements on platform workers or their representatives in the procedures determining their correct employment relationship. This means that national definitions will not be broadened, leaving all national models intact, including those that adhere to a narrow notion of subordination. At the same time, the Directive now forces national legislators to introduce procedural mechanisms whereby individuals in the platform economy (platform workers) can be presumed to be in an employment relationship. Importantly, the Directive does not require this presumption to be linked to specific criteria. This lays the basis for a legal instrument that is general and adaptive, and in principle available to all individuals working in the platform economy, whether locally (e.g., transport, food delivery, i.e., location-based work on demand via apps) or online (e.g., crowdwork) [24]. Under Article 5(1) of the Directive, a contractual relationship between a digital work platform and a person performing platform-based work through that platform may be presumed to be an employment relationship if facts indicating direction and control are established in accordance with national law, collective agreements or practice in force in the Member State concerned, subject to the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU. If, however, the digital work platform wishes to rebut the legal presumption, it will have the burden of proving that the contractual relationship in question should not be considered an employment relationship under the law, collective agreements or practice in force in the Member States, subject to the case law of the Court of Justice. Platforms will, therefore, be able to object to the reclassification and rebut the presumption if they can prove that the contractual relationship in question is not an employment relationship. However, platforms cannot rely solely on the wording of the contract and the description of the worker’s duties and activities, as Article 4 (re)establishes the key principle of the primacy of facts based on ILO Recommendation No. 198 (2006) [24].

However, this presumption requires a revision of national legislation. Indeed, Article 4(1) rightly requires Member States to have in place adequate and effective procedures to verify and ensure the determination of the genuine employment relationship of platform workers, including the application of the legal presumption of employment relationship under Article 5, in order to establish, in the light of the case law of the Court of Justice, whether an employment relationship exists as defined by the law, collective agreements, or practice in force in the Member State concerned. In our view, this is perhaps the greatest challenge for national legislators. In Hungarian law, for example, the Ministerial Directive, which is already obsolete but which is still applied with contradictory results, is perceived as being extremely outdated. For this reason, it can still be said that a conceptual change is needed in Hungarian law, the direction of which will be somewhat determined by the EU provision that is due to be transposed into Hungarian law in 2026. At the same time, the EU directive itself is open to debate on several points.

One of these points is the fact that the activation of the presumption, although formally general, is subject to a double filter: it applies only to platforms “organising work” (Article 1(3)) and only in the case of facts indicating control and direction (Article 5(1)). Given that organisation, control, and direction are already strong indicators of the existence of an employment relationship, the effect of the presumption is to mainly target those who are already clearly in a subordinate position to the platform (e.g., food delivery workers), while potentially excluding those who would likely benefit most from such a presumption (e.g., workers on online platforms, crowdworkers) [24].

Another potential weakness of the concept is the wide discretion left to Member States by the Directive. In fact, compared to the drafts, EU legislators decided to drop the originally stricter wording of the presumption, which can only be activated if at least two of the five criteria listed in the Directive (setting or fixing a ceiling for remuneration, rules on appearance and conduct, performance assessment, work organisation, including working time, limitation of work for third parties and clients) are met. However, the Directive does not clearly prevent national legislators from introducing similarly narrow catalogues [24]. This is reinforced by Hießl’s strident view that the presumption, however broadly interpreted, is virtually meaningless if it can be rebutted by a relatively conservative national definition of a worker [25].

One thing is certain, however: self-employment only applies in the case of informal work, which is not contingent, where the worker does not perform the work for their own account and risk, but for the contracted company. In the case of dependent work, however, it is wrong to tolerate self-employment without protection under labour law. Therefore, any effort to support this is useful, as the Directive, for all its flaws, can help the situation of platform workers at least by stimulating legislators and national courts to reassess whether their traditional approaches to defining the groups that need protection under labour law are still appropriate to the realities of today’s labour market [25]. This is particularly necessary in light of what is seen in the judicial practice of platform contracts across Europe. Indeed, in EU countries and beyond, more than 100 court judgments have already addressed the employment status of platform workers, often with contradictory results. In 2021, for example, the Belgian courts ruled that Deliveroo’s carriers are self-employed, a decision that is not yet final. This is in line with a UK Supreme Court ruling that denied collective bargaining rights to Deliveroo’s couriers at the end of 2023, citing a lack of employment relationship. In contrast, in March 2023, the Dutch High Court (Hoge Raad) ruled that Deliveroo delivery drivers are workers [26]. This picture is also reinforced by the Hungarian platform case mentioned above, which can be considered the only Hungarian, and Central and Eastern European platform case so far.

A contradictory picture is unlikely to disappear without legislative intervention, since, in the case of platform-based work, including work on demand via apps, it is more favourable for profit-oriented digital platforms if both phases of the contract are of a self-employed nature for two reasons: firstly, because the on-call time in this case can be remunerated at a lower rate on the basis of a civil law agreement rather than the minimum wage that apply to employment contracts. Moreover, it can be replaced by allowing for employment elsewhere. On the other hand, self-employment can be applied on the basis of freer work and fewer instructions, which allows employing platforms to escape the obligation of contributing to the social security contributions of platform workers. This conflict is deepening the gap between the situation of workers and the interests of the platform companies pushing for mass production, which also undermines a sustainable labour market, and its resolution is, therefore, urgent. In Europe, this will not happen with this directive for the above reasons, so further research is needed at national level on how to consistently address the situation of workers and protect those who are vulnerable.

Based on these research results, the research confirms that while legal theory offers useful frameworks, it often lacks practical utility for both platform companies and workers when it comes to ensuring sustainable income and secure working conditions. The core finding is that both crowdwork and work on demand via apps are shaped by conflicting interests regarding the classification of contracts: as employment relationships or sui generis civil law agreements. In crowdwork, the legal positioning of the contractual relationship is strategically influenced by whether the platform wishes to characterise a contribution as part of an existing employment obligation or as an independent, reward-based engagement. Thus, employers might tend to push crowdwork into the employment category, while employees often benefit more from its classification as a non-employment, prize-based activity. In contrast, work on demand via apps shows an inverse dynamic: the platform companies prefer outsourcing both task allocation and performance through civil law contracts to avoid the extra costs. This leads to the widespread use of “zero hours” models, which have triggered legal and political resistance across Europe. These arrangements often disguise economically dependent work as self-employment, reducing worker protections, which is a huge problem in Europe. The study further reveals that the EU Platform Work Directive (2024/414) introduces a rebuttable presumption of employment, aiming to correct this imbalance. However, its effectiveness is limited by vague criteria, national discretion in implementation, and its reliance on indicators (like control and direction) that may already point to traditional subordination. As a result, the Directive primarily benefits location-based platform workers, while online crowdworkers (and other type of self-employed workers) remain largely unprotected. As such, the results highlight the incoherence and tension between profit-driven platform strategies and the fragmented legal protections for platform workers. While the EU’s legal intervention marks a step forward, further national-level legislative reform and judicial clarification are essential to close the regulatory gaps and ensure meaningful protection for all types of (platform) workers.

6. Conclusions

Digital platform contracts have a wide range of legal problems. The present study sought to analyse these issues from a theoretical perspective, covering points relating to economic law, labour law, and intellectual property law. Two types of digital platform contracts, crowdwork and work on demand via apps, were analysed in detail, including their overlapping legal relationship and their separate nature as contracts for the use of the services of third parties. In the case of crowdwork, the company asking the question and expecting a solution to the problem tries to put its own name on the solution received via the digital platform, while the problem-solver submitting the solution tries to put their own name on the solution. Therefore, if such a dispute arises, the application of copyright and patent law rules, in addition to the rules of contract law, may be at stake, with reluctant specifications for service invention and innovation (know how). In contrast, in the case of work on demand via apps, the most problematic issue is the qualification, i.e., whether it is a permanent undertaking or assignment or a service or employment contract. It is in the interest of the contractor to qualify as the former and the worker as the latter. Most of the litigation arises from this. Deciding this question is a major task for the courts because of the mix of qualifying marks and the borderline cases. However, the Directive, which was also adopted to resolve a number of conflicting decisions, may not be able to help the situation, as the final text of the Directive leaves many questions to be settled. It may well be that the task of qualification will, once again, be in the hands of the judges, which will, it seems, require proactive action by the national legislator, as it should have in the past.