Title: Consultancy agreements as a mechanism to defraud employees under Jordanian law

Authors: Kamal Jamal Alawamleh; Omar Mahmoud Emar

Addresses: The Faculty of Law, University of Petra, Amman, Jordan ' The Faculty of Law, University of Petra, Amman, Jordan

Abstract: In various recent cases, numerous employees have sued their employers before the Jordanian courts to pay their unpaid labour rights. Yet, such employers sought to disavow such claims by alleging that what bind them is a consultancy agreement rather than an employment agreement. Accordingly, such paper seeks to critically inspect the abovementioned courts' decisions, to illustrate whether such courts have been successful in what they have found, and the extent to which it facilitated deceiving employees by unscrupulous employers under the pretext of consultancy agreements. This work suggests that whilst the eminent Jordanian courts' decisions have mostly been elegant and do comply with law, yet the Jordanian legislator has to intervene and regulate such a matter to stop defrauding overwhelmed employees. As far as the author is aware, this is the first scholarly work that addresses this important matter from a legal standpoint, at least from a Jordanian law perspective.

Keywords: consultancy agreements; employment agreements; Jordanian Labour Law; employees' rights; defrauding employees; employment crime.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLAP.2024.135206

International Journal of Public Law and Policy, 2024 Vol.10 No.1, pp.53 - 61

Received: 17 Feb 2022
Accepted: 08 Apr 2022
Published online: 02 Dec 2023 *