The paper explores the intricate relationship between business practices in subcontracting chains and the protection of posted workers' rights in the EU labour market.It provides a concise overview of the evolution of the EU legal framework for posted workers and the corresponding legislation, highlighting its deficiencies in providing comprehensive protection across subcontracting chains.Moreover, the paper focuses on two mechanisms in the existing EU legal framework: the liability scheme and the due diligence as the escape system.Firstly, the research examines the (in)sufficiency of the liability system introduced by the 2014 Enforcement Directive, comparing national implementations.It also criticises the missed opportunity to improve that scheme in PWD 18, highlighting the inadequacies of existing EU legal frameworks in protecting the rights of posted workers within subcontracting chains.Secondly, the paper examines additional lost opportunities to improve the due diligence system, a pivotal element in international, regional, and national discussions of corporate responsibility for rights violations.It analyses the potential for broader application of this mechanism within the scope of posted workers' legislation, rather than merely as a defence or escape mechanism, emphasising its importance for proactively selecting subcontractors and for compelling contractors to act in the best interests of posted *
Vinković et al. (Mon,) studied this question.