The problem of distinguishing between labour and civil contracts in the gig-economy

The author draws attention to the fact that the development of digital technologies has expanded the horizon of opportunities for the subjects of legal relations in which a person exercises the right to work. The subjects of these legal relations, independently exercising their freedom of will and acting in their interests, enter either a civil or an employment contract. However, given that in such legal relations, a person exercising the right to work is usually in the legal status of a weak party, society has faced the problem of abuse by employers. Employers have started giving labor relations, in essence, civil law structures, depriving employees of fundamental social and labor rights and guarantees or severely limiting them. In this regard, science, legislation, and judicial practice faced the problem of finding new approaches to distinguishing between civil and employment contracts, as the concepts of an employment contract established in science no longer correspond to modern conditions. Thus, with the emergence of remote work and other non-traditional forms of labor, the features of a traditional employment contract, which allowed distinguishing it from a contractor agreement, ceased to perform the distinguishing function. The article aims to formulate a new approach to defining the distinguishing features of an employment contract and a civil contract in the digital economy. The author’s analysis of legislation, scientific literature, and case law has concluded that an employment contract in the digital economy has variable features. This means there is a need for legislative consolidation of variants of the features of an employment contract. If two or more of them are present, this will allow recognition of an agreement under which a person exercises the right to work as an employment contract. At the same time, the article draws attention to the fact that a decision in this category of cases should meet the following requirements: The focus when deciding on the legal nature of the contract concluded should be on establishing which contract the person exercising his/her right to work intended. The court should avoid formalism and base its decision on facts. The primary purpose of such a decision is to effectively protect the labor and social rights of a person exercising the right to work. Keywords: right to labour, labour relations, employment contract, employee, employer, employment, remote work, freedom of will of the parties to the employment contract, social function of labour law, guarantees, IT sector, contractual regulation, amendment of an employment contract.