This Law on fighting measures against illegal employment and social security fraud was published in the Official State Gazette of 27 December 2012, modifying certain aspects of the following issues: outsourcing of services issues, Social Security aspects, and infringements and sanctions in social order issues.

1.       Outsourcing of services issues.

The law modifies the contracting liability regime of the article 42 of the Statute of Workers Rights, increasing the period of time in which the main contractor can be jointly liable in social security and salary matters. The law specifies that the employers who hire services of their own activity or services which are provided on a continuing basis in their workplaces should verify the necessary affiliation and registration to social security of each worker during the period of the contract.

2.       Social Security aspects.

The General law of Social Security is modified in the following matters: the possibility of reducing the infringements in social security issues by 50% if the offender indicates his agreement with the performed settlement and pays it in time; the employers’ obligations in the assumptions of the application for termination measures of contracts or the reduction of working hours under the article 47 of the Statute of Workers Rights; the Social Security special contribution agreements in the cases of collective dismissals; and companies registrations and affiliation, registrations, cancellations and modifications of the workers’ data in Social Security.

Regarding the benefits in Social Security which modifies the Royal Decree-Law 20/2012, of 13 July 2012, on measures to guarantee budgetary stability and boosting competitiveness, and in relation to benefit suppression, Law 13/2012 establishes that from 15 July 2012 the elimination of some benefits that are recorded in the following laws won’t be applicable: Law 44/2007, Royal Decree 1451/1983, Law 10/1994, Ministerial decree from Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour of 16 October 1998, Royal Decree 290/2004, Royal Decree-Law 5/2006.

3.       Infringements and sanctions in social order issues.

The law introduces some infringements that were not in the previous text, and in the same way recent developments in the application of sanctions have been established, particularly, the regime of the application of the accompanying sanctions is specified in more detail.

For that purpose, the law gives Labour inspectorate the necessary competences to detect and sanction situations of illegal employment and social security fraud.