The Court of Cassation, with sentence 1663/2020, confirms the decision taken by the Court of Appeal of Turin a year ago in the dispute that saw some riders and the Foodora company opposing each other.
The Supreme Court essentially confirms the reading and application of Article 2 of Legislative Decree 81/2015 considered a 
choice made by the legislator to "ensure the worker the same protection enjoyed by subordinate work ... in order to protect providers evidently considered to be in a condition of economic "weakness", operating in a "grey area" between autonomy and subordination".
What matters is that in a middle ground with blurred boundaries between subordination and self-employment, the law has expressly established the application of the rules on subordinate work. In the specific case, the Cassation confirms the analysis conducted by the Court of Appeal, according to which the rider's activity in the initial phase is autonomous, because the individual chooses whether to work in a specific time slot, but then the performance is hetero-organized. Cyclists are not employees, but certain conditions of subordinate work must be recognized to them.
Another case is that of a group of twelve former sales agents of a Roman dealership who claimed a right in court and shortly after were kicked out. It was easy to get rid of them: they weren't "subordinates", but in recent years their activity had been analyzed in detail and this profiling, if necessary, made it possible to bring out the reasons for dismissing them. Some would not have promoted enough financial services, others would not have done enough test drives. They were formally autonomous, 
but in reality - they say - they were subject to many obligations and were subjected to pressing control.
The agency contracts widely used in dealerships are required by law but much abused. Self-employment often useful only to save on costs: no contracts and freedom to fire without article 18 (or what is left of it or compensation). In some ways, it is similar to what happens to delivery food riders: the platforms don't hire them, they pay them on delivery, yet they draw up the ranking of the best and least good, so as to favor the former and penalize the latter.
A VAT number, a single client, an ongoing employment relationship. These are the characteristics of false VAT numbers. False because the autonomy of the freelancer is just an illusion: those who work in this way often have all the Duties of a employee, but without the rights and protections.
A very widespread phenomenon especially in the service sector, to counter it the Fornero law introduced a antidote, later diluted by the Jobs Act, which triggers the controls of the Territorial Labor Directorate in case of presumption of subordination and provides that the relationship between the client and the VAT holder must be transformed into a employment relationship.
The potential antidote against the false VAT numbers was introduced into the regulatory system by law number 92 of 2012, the Fornero Law. The text indicates i assumptions hence the presumption of subordination arises
Article 69-bis (Other work performed under self-employment arrangements). – 1. The work services rendered by a person with a tax position for the purposes of value added tax are considered, unless proof to the contrary is provided by the client, coordinated and continuous collaboration relationships, if there are at least two of the following assumptionsthe:
a) that the collaboration with the same client has a total duration of more than eight months per year for two consecutive years;
b) that the fee deriving from this collaboration, even if invoiced to several subjects attributable to the same center of attribution of interests, constitutes more than 80 percent of the total annual fees received by the collaborator over two consecutive calendar years;
c) that the collaborator has a fixed workstation at one of the client's offices.
And are the ISFs with a VAT number really autonomous or are they subordinated?
