TUPE
In MITIE Managed Services Ltd v French and others, the EAT holds that a contractual right to participate in an employer's profit-sharing scheme may, following a TUPE transfer, become a right to participate in a scheme of "substantial equivalence" only, if the right to continue participating in the original scheme is absurd, impossible or unjust.
In RCO Support Services and another v Unison and others, the Court of Appeal upholds a decision of an employment tribunal that there were relevant transfers of undertakings within the meaning of the TUPE Regulations in the form of labour-intensive cleaning and catering support activities, respectively, despite the fact that almost none of the workforce was taken on by the transferee.
Early retirement and enhanced benefits paid on dismissal for redundancy to employees who have reached a certain age are not "old-age, invalidity or survivors' benefits" within the meaning of article 3(4) of the EC Business Transfers Directive, even if those benefits were calculated by reference to the rules for calculating normal pension benefits, holds the European Court of Justice in Beckmann v Dynamco Whicheloe Macfarlane Ltd.
In Hagen and others v ICI Chemicals and Polymers Ltd, the High Court holds that on the facts, an employer owed a duty to take reasonable care as to the truth of statements made to its employees in relation to a TUPE transfer.
When does Tupe apply to outsourcing situations? There are few more complex and volatile areas of employment law, and a recent decision by the European Court of Justice may only add to the confusion.
The question of whether the whole or a majority of a transferee contractor's workforce is taken on by the putative transferor cannot be determinative of whether or not there has been a relevant transfer of an undertaking under the EC Business Transfer Directive and the domestic Transfer of Undertakings Regulations, holds the EAT in Cheeseman and others v R Brewer Contracts Ltd and Onyx (UK) Ltd v Cheeseman and others.
The principal reason for the dismissal of a transferor's employees, purportedly on the grounds of redundancy, was the impending transfer of the undertaking, holds the EAT in Kerry Foods Ltd v Creber and others.
In Francisco HernandezVidal SA v Gomez Perez and others [1999] IRLR 132 ECJ, the European Court of Justice held that, for the purposes of EC Business Transfers Directive 77/187, an organised grouping of wage earners who are specifically and permanently assigned to a common task may, in the absence of other factors of production, amount to an economic entity.
There was no transfer to which the Transfer of Undertakings Regulations applied when an industrial and provident society took over the management of local authority care homes by, in effect, acquiring the shares of the company that ran the homes and employed the staff who worked in them, holds the EAT in Brookes and others v Borough Care Services and CLS Care Services Ltd.
Employees who are dismissed by the transferor of an undertaking, and then re-engaged by the transferee on different but agreed terms, are not entitled to retain the benefit of their previous terms of employment, holds the House of Lords in Wilson and others v St Helens Borough Council and Baxendale and Meade v British Fuels Ltd.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to TUPE.