Contracts of employment: "Annualised hours" contract contained implied term on overtime pay

In Ali and others v Christian Salvesen Food Services plc the EAT holds that a contract of employment, which provided that overtime payments would be made only when the employee had worked more than the annualised hours total of 1,824 hours in the working year, contained an implied term entitling the employee, whose employment terminated several months before the end of the working year, to overtime payments in certain circumstances. The EAT holds that it was necessary to imply this term, which provided for overtime pay in respect of weeks when the employee had worked more hours than the notional 40 hours on which the standard weekly wage was based, in order to fill an obvious gap in the contract which the parties could not have intended.