On 10 July 2024, the Amsterdam District Court ruled in the proceedings brought by trade unions FNV and CNV against Temper that Temper is an online platform for work and not a temporary employment agency, as the unions had claimed. All claims submitted by the trade unions were rejected. This ruling may also be useful to you as a client in assessing various employment relationships within your organisation. This is a topic that has gained more weight with the 2025 lifting of the enforcement moratorium, even in 2026.
What was the case about and why was it filed?
The lawsuit against Temper was initiated by the FNV and CNV unions. They argued that Temper, a platform connecting freelancers with clients, operated as an employment agency. This would mean that all people working through the platform would have to be employed by Temper under an agency contract. Interestingly, the 'Freeflexers'—the name for freelancers working via Temper—overwhelmingly opposed this idea.
What was the ruling and why?
In July 2024, the Amsterdam court ruled in favour of Temper. The judge determined that Temper is not an employment agency but an online platform facilitating connections between freelancers and clients. Therefore, there was no basis for an agency or employment contract, as the unions had claimed. The court dismissed all of the unions' claims.
The ruling followed an earlier decision in which the court had already determined that the trade unions could no longer represent the people who had worked through Temper. This judgment followed the opt-out phase, during which over 15,000 individuals who had worked through Temper had indicated that they did not want the unions to represent their interests.
The July 2024 ruling, confirming that Temper is not an employment agency, was based on the same nine criteria used by the Dutch Supreme Court in the Deliveroo case.
These criteria can be incredibly useful for you as a client, especially now that the enforcement moratorium is being lifted as of 1 January 2025. You can use these points to assess the employment relationships within your organisation.
What can you, as a client, learn from this ruling when evaluating employment relationships within your organisation?
Since 1 January 2025, the Dutch Tax Authority has been actively enforcing the DBA Act, applying a risk-based enforcement strategy and soft landing approach that continues into 2026. The Tax Authority follows the layered model (schillenmodel): if an organisation can demonstrate during an initial inspection that it has actively taken measures to prevent false self-employment, the Tax Authority will not proceed to further investigation. The focus is on organisations that demonstrably have not adequately structured their use of self-employed professionals.
In addition, the new cabinet (sworn in February 2026) has put forward plans for a Self-Employed Act (Zelfstandigenwet) to replace the current assessment framework. However, this legislation has not yet been adopted and must still pass through both chambers of Parliament. Until then, the DBA Act and existing case law — including the holistic assessment based on the nine Deliveroo criteria — remain the decisive framework.
The advice is therefore to ensure the first layer is well in order. This can be achieved in two steps:
- Document how the hiring of self-employed professionals works within your organisation and specify the relevant employment relationships. We are happy to support you with our practical template.
- Assess these employment relationships against existing case law (the Deliveroo ruling) and the DBA Act. We have developed a practical template with supporting scorecard that you can use as a guide.
Would you like personal support with the steps above? Our team is happy to help.
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