Relief for the founder of the VTC application "Private Drivers".
Threatened with a one-year prison sentence and a fine of 75,000 euros, Yannick H. was released on Monday by the Nanterre criminal court.
The companies Transcovo and Transopco, the creator and operator of the application, also escape two fines of 350,000 euros each.
CEO of Transcovo, start-up founder of the Chauffeur Privé application, Yannick H. was suspected, like the American giant Uber, of aggravated concealed work.
Between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2017, 12,798 drivers were under his command.
Drivers that the young boss presented as self-employed while on their side, Urssaf and the Labor Inspectorate considered them as employees.
Hence the particular interest shown in 2017 by the Labor Inspectorate in the activity of this company which has since become Kapten, then Free Now.
“Lack of concrete and convincing elements”
“The goal was to understand the functioning of the company, had explained, at the hearing, the controller in charge of this file.
We recovered a certain number of documents and I notably met with the HRD and the director of operations to understand what the company's relationship was with the drivers.
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The investigation did not really go beyond that.
44 employees were heard, in particular in Levallois-Perret, but informally.
And if the company had more than 12,000 drivers at one time, the hearings reported in good and due form on the minutes can actually be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The court therefore considered that it had not had the means, “for lack of concrete and convincing elements”, to determine the nature of the links which united the drivers and the management.
