Foreign companies providing services in Denmark temporarily have since 2008 been obligated to register with the Register of Foreign Service Providers (RUT). The purpose of registration with RUT is to enable the Danish authorities to monitor and enforce compliance with Danish legislation by foreign companies.
However, experience from the Working Environment Service shows that there are still foreign companies that persistently choose not to register with RUT. Today, such failure may result in a fine of approx. DKK 10,000 and, due to the convention on double jeopardy, multiple fines cannot be imposed on the same company for the same offence.
Enhanced enforcement measures
The Danish parliament has therefore assessed that it is necessary to tighten the rules and improve the Working Environment Authority’s enforcement measures to force companies to register with RUT.
From 1 July 2018, the Working Environment Authority may therefore order companies having failed to register to do so immediately.
If the company still fails to register, the Working Environment Authority may impose daily fines on the company (so-called daily default fines) until the order is observed. It is assumed that the fines will be fixed at minimum DKK 1,000 per day.
As companies should not be able to avoid registration with RUT by e.g. complaining about an order for registration or default fines, such complaint will not have a suspensive effect.