UBER REQUIRED TO PAY OASI CONTRIBUTIONS FOR SWISS DRIVERS

The Federal Supreme Court (Feb. 16, 2023 Judgments Nos. 9C_70/2022, 9C_71/2022, 9C_75/2022, 9C_76/2022) dismissed the appeals filed by Dutch companies Uber B.V. and Rasier Operations B.V. and partially upheld those filed by the compensation fund, ordering them to pay AVS contributions for 2014 for drivers respectively of UberX, UberBlack, UberVan and UberPop as employers with business establishment in Switzerland, regardless of the drivers' nationality.

First, it confirmed that Uber drivers were emplyees and found that this conclusion was legitimate in light of the characteristics of the contractual relationships between Uber drivers and the two companies. These characteristics included the fact that the companies gave the drivers rather detailed instructions and then controlled their execution through the application, as well as the existence of the drivers' subordinate relationship in certain key areas and the substantial absence of their own economic risk.

The drivers' service center with an address at Uber Switzerland GmbH (Greenlight Center Zurich) was considered to be the business establishment of Uber B.V. and Rasier Operations B.V. because they had the power to dispose of the permanent facilities located there and their business activity was carried out at least in part at that address (which has remained unchanged for Uber B.V. since 2014). This resulted in the two companies' obligation to pay AVS contributions as employers with a business establishment in Switzerland.

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