Don’t forget to agree remuneration in agreements for work performed outside the employment relationship – it can backfire

Judgment of the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic dated 14 May 2015, Ref. No. 21 Cdo 918/2014

The essentials of the agreement to perform work are the agreed work, the agreed scope of working hours and the time period for which the agreement is entered into.Other arrangements agreed by the employer and the employee in the agreement to perform work can be decided by the parties to the agreement, whose contractual freedom is obviously limited by other provisions of the Labour Code. One of them is the provision of Section 138 of the Labour Code, under which the remuneration from the agreement and the conditions for its payment are agreed in the agreement to complete a job or in the agreement to perform work. Therefore, agreeing remuneration in another type of agreement or contract is contrary to the law, and such an agreement or contract for the amount of remuneration would be null and void. The party that would not cause the agreement or contract to be null and void and that would be affected by the invalid agreement or contract could object to the invalidity of the contract, and the employee would not be entitled to the remuneration in the (invalidly) agreed amount, but in the amount determined in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Labour Code.