Ultrafast grocer Gorillas avoids German labor laws by becoming Dutch

Gorillas, an originally German rapid delivery service for groceries, turned Dutch a few weeks ago. The apparent company, Gorillas Technologies Holding Bv, transferred to a Dutch private limited company based in Amsterdam on January 28, NRC reported based on documents filed with the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. The Gorillas headquarters will remain in Berlin.

According to the newspaper, German companies often opt for such constructions via the Netherlands to circumvent the German employee participation law. German law gives employees a large amount of space to participate in discussions about the workplace. For example, half of the seats in large companies' supervisory boards are reserved for employee representatives. In the Netherlands, employees can nominate a third of the supervisory directors through the works council.

Gorillas told NRC that it chose the Netherlands for its parent company to "create an efficient holding structure and further enable the next phase of our growth." According to the Chamber of Commerce documents, 446 of the over 10,000 Gorillas employees work at the Dutch parent company.

Gorillas promises to deliver groceries to customers "within minutes" of ordering. It is currently active in 12 Dutch cities.

The rapidly growing popularity of super-fast grocery delivery services like Gorillas and its competitors - Getir, Zapp, and Flink - is causing headaches for some Dutch municipalities, with complaints of noise pollution, improperly parked bicycles and scooters, and unsafe traffic conditions. Several Dutch cities are taking measures to direct the growth of these services. Amsterdam and Rotterdam, for example, banned the opening of any new distribution hubs this year while they figure out how to best set up this new kind of business.