Platform economy database
Database of initiatives and court cases in the EU
Eurofound’s platform economy database provides information on 443 initiatives and court cases that exist or have been implemented in relation to activities in the platform economy. The database was last updated in November 2025 and provides metadata for each entry, such as geographical scope, year, type of initiative, actors involved, sector and companies concerned. Initiatives include legal instruments such as legislative changes or court decisions, as well as voluntary interventions undertaken by different stakeholders to address issues around platform work.
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The database currently contains 443 entries and was last updated in November 2025.
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Spain
In a judgement dated 10 July 2025, the Commercial Court of Barcelona dismissed in its entirety a lawsuit brought by Just Eat Spain (JES) against its competitor, Glovo. Just Eat was claiming over €295 million in damages for alleged unfair competition
Just Eat's central claim was that Glovo had engaged in unfair competition by systematically breaking Spanish labour law since 2015. Just Eat argued that Glovo built its business model on illegally classifying its delivery riders as "false self-employed" ("falsos autónomos") instead of employees. This practice, according to Just Eat, gave Glovo an illicit cost advantage, allowing it to distort the market, damage competitors' profit margins, and unfairly gain a dominant market position. Glovo countered that its relationship model with riders had evolved through several distinct phases and that each model was compliant with the law at the time. It also argued that Just Eat had waited too long to file its lawsuit. The judge rejected Glovo's procedural claims that the lawsuit was filed too late but ultimately ruled in Glovo's favour on all substantive points.
Labour Law is Not Competition Law The court first ruled that even if a company breaks labour law, this is not an infringement of laws that specifically regulate competitive activity. It stated that the object of labour law is to regulate the relationship between employers and workers, not the market itself.
Glovo Did Not Break the Law The judge concluded that, for the period under review (from 2019 onwards), Glovo's rider models ("Slot 2" and "Flex") provided sufficient autonomy and independence for the riders to be considered genuine self-employed contractors. The judge found that the Spanish Supreme Court's landmark 2020 ruling (which declared Glovo's riders to be employees) only applied to an older model ("Slot 1") and was not relevant to the newer, more flexible models. The ruling was heavily influenced by numerous decisions from administrative courts, which had consistently found Glovo's newer models to be non-employment relationships. The judge argued that Spain's Riders' Law allows for self-employed couriers, provided the relationship is genuinely autonomous, and that Glovo's models met this standard.
The Damages Claim Was Unfounded Finally, the court found Just Eat's damages calculation to be based on flawed assumptions. It noted that the two companies had different business models and were not directly comparable. Crucially, real-world data presented at trial showed that after Glovo began employing its riders in early 2025, its market share did not fall as Just Eat's economic model had predicted; instead, it remained stable while Just Eat's slightly declined.
Glovo (the Spanish unit of Delivery Hero) has announced that it will hire riders as full-time employees. This shift is intended to mitigate ongoing legal uncertainties and regulatory penalties previously …
The platform economy is one of those moving targets, which, despite receiving increasing media and policy attention, has proven difficult to regulate. Given the heterogeneity of employment relationships, business models, types of platform work and cross-border issues, this is not surprising.
Technological change is accelerating as the capacity of electronic devices to digitally store, process and communicate information expands. Digitalisation is transforming the EU economy and labour markets: nearly one-third of EU workplaces are categorised as highly digitalised. What are the implications of the digital revolution for employment and work?
The rapid rise of the platform economy has led to a marked transformation of European labour markets, and existing regulatory frameworks and voluntary initiatives have yet to catch up. While platform work offers opportunities for workers and employers and potentially contributes to innovation, economic growth and competitiveness in the EU, it has been criticised from the beginning because of the poor employment and working conditions often experienced by workers.
While 2020 may come to be seen as the year platform work gathered pace and started to go mainstream – thanks in large part to COVID-19 containment measures sparking an increase in food and grocery delivery – 2021 could be the year that regulation of platform work is set in motion.
