The Stuart home delivery platform, a subsidiary of the La Poste group, prosecuted for undercover work, was released this Thursday by the Paris court, as was Resto In, a now-defunct company that specialized in home delivery of meals.
The companies Stuart and Resto In were both accused of having used paid freelance delivery drivers when they should have been employees, but the Paris court considered that the elements in their possession “were insufficient to establish the conviction that an employment relationship united the delivery drivers “. the platforms”.
Nine months after Deliveroo was sentenced to the maximum penalty – a fine of 375,000 euros – and two of its former leaders for similar acts, the Paris court this time made an exactly opposite decision.
Stuart sentenced for illegal labor loan
However, the prosecution had requested the same sentence for Stuart and Resto In and a suspended prison sentence for the two founders of these companies. “We are, of course, a general employment cover-up (…) which concerns several hundred jobs with an activity created so that the workers are declared independent”, had estimated the prosecutor Céline Ducournau.
Clément Benoit, founder of Resto In, and Benjamin Chemla, founder of Stuart, were thus acquitted of charges of undercover work, but Benjamin Chemla and Stuart were instead convicted of illicit labor loan.
They are accused of having used a company called Branis Courses, to which Stuart subcontracted certain shipments but whose “existence was purely theoretical” because the platform represented all activity of Branis Courses employees.
Delivery men were not considered subordinates
Stuart was fined €50,000 and Benjamin Chemla €10,000, all suspended.
The small number of distributors heard -eight- during the procedure, “sometimes contradictory” hearings and “distributors who mostly indicated that they had not been subject to sanctions from the platform or did not consider themselves subordinates”, have led the court to acquit to those accused of the main facts.
“This decision puts an end to many years of proceedings and reminds us that Stuart has always wanted to deploy a model in line with the law,” insisted Stuart’s lawyer, Me Rémi Lorrain, after the sentence.
Source: BFM TV
