The battle over the employment status of professional athletes: Amy Pieters v. SD Worx

This article analyses an ongoing case which may have potential to change how relationships between athletes and their teams are construed in the Netherlands.

The case of Amy Pieters is a tragic one. Pieters, a celebrated Dutch cyclist with numerous prizes on her name, crashed in Spain during a training session that was organized by the Dutch Cycling Federation in December 2021. As a result of this crash Pieters was in a coma for weeks. When she finally awoke, it became clear that Pieters suffered severe brain damage, with limited chances of recovery. Such a happening naturally raises all kinds of questions. How should Pieters be treated? Where? And how can the treatment be afforded? Is there a social security system in place that Pieters can rely on? And is there another party that is liable for Pieters’ damages?

While searching for answers to these questions, it became apparent that Pieters (or those who represent her) and her team, the Dutch professional cycling team SD Worx-Protime, had different views and opinions. Pieters took the position that her contract with the team qualifies as an employment contract, while the team took the position that Pieters was a self-employed rider. The answer to this fundamental question is very important. In the Netherlands there are major differences between these two contract forms, both from a civil law perspective as well as from a tax perspective. Because an agreement could not be reached between the parties on this fundamental issue (and some follow-up questions), Pieters decided to start legal proceedings in front of the subdistrict court in Maastricht (the Netherlands) and asked the judge to decide who was right. In its response to this claim, SD Worx rejected the court’s competence. The team took the position that the UCI Arbitral Board (and/or the CAS) was the competent body, because the contract contained an arbitration clause in favor of the UCI. In an interim judgement of 17 April 2024, the subdistrict court of Maastricht rejected the team’s position on the jurisdiction of the court.^[1]

This is an interesting case to keep an eye on to see how the courts interpret the application of Dutch employment law to this case which provides for an indefinite employment contract if more than 3 temporary contracts have been entered into and fulfilled by both parties.

In this article, first, the interim judgement of the court of Maastricht will be discussed in further detail. Then, the author examines the importance of answering the fundamental question of how the rider’s contract must be qualified and certain issues that need to be dealt with in case the court decides that Pieters’ contract was, indeed, an employment contract. Lastly, the article will briefly analyze the effects that this case may have on professional cycling.

The article examines:

• Validity of arbitration clause in the contract
• Employee or self-employed?
• Is it a fixed term contract?
• Potential impact of the case