Jurisdictional Clauses in Platform Work Contracts: A Danish Perspective

Abstract

Recent technological developments have increased the need for a restatement of some of the prescriptive concepts in labour law, consumer law, completion law, contract law as well as in other areas. Many researchers have increased their scrutiny of these concepts, and for this special issue of the Nordic Journal of Commercial Law, this article tries to deal with what might be an overarching legal issue - the issue of where to solve potential disputes. This paper is both investigative and exploratory in nature. Using doctrinal research method, and two examples, the author examines the possible legal approaches to disputes arising from work contracts entered into by individuals and platform companies. The analysis of two different jurisdictional clauses takes into account the character of the subject in the main contract, and finds potential difficulties and consequences in applying the current PIL regime to the sui generis contracts of the platform economy. Following the conclusions, while based on inductive reasoning, it could be hypothesized that there is a need for a restatement of some concepts in PIL. This paper argues, based on two examples, that jurisdictional agreements in platform work contracts, and the rules governing them, cause uncertainty and unpredictability. Further studies need to be done to support this.