The cross-border supply of services and illegal work

    With effect from 18 th of the June 2016 come into force the new Act on Cross-Border Cooperation (CBC). At the same time they were amended provisions of the Labour Code (LC) and the Act on Illegal Work and Illegal Employment (AIWIE).

    According to §4 CBC the foreign employer before entering his employees to Slovakia has to give in writing or electronically to the National Labour Inspectorate (NLI) required information about employees who will provide services in Slovakia. On the website NLI is published the form to sign such staff. The obligation to notify is for any service, for example transportation of goods, assembly, installation, computer services, consulting services, consulting … It is therefore important that a domestic body has informed its foreign partner of that obligation. Break of this obligation will be fined.

    These obligations are valid to employers from EU Member States and Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein. It does not apply to employers in other states, such as Russia, Serbia, China, USA …

    The cross-border secondment of employees does not apply to business trips involving only the trade negotiations, presentation of goods, services, or participation in seminars, training courses. It must be a provision of services.

    According the amended of the Labour Code, the foreign employers who perform work in the territory of Slovakia must respect our labour legislation. It also establishes a shared responsibility of the supplier (subcontractor) services in the Slovak Republic for the payment of wages for foreign employee if his foreign employer failed to pay wages.

    If the cross-border services in Slovakia takes more than 5 days in a 12 month period, then the domestic customer needs to know if the foreign employee is insured in his country and that it is not about illegal work. The foreign service supplier has to provides that information to the domestic customer. If no, the domestic customer could be fined from €2000 to €200,000.