In this test case, the employment tribunal found that an NHS trust had unlawfully amended its pay progression policy to provide that staff would be denied a pay rise if their sickness absence reached a certain level.
The employer in this case fell into the trap of assuming that, as long as it waited for a while (one year in this case) after a TUPE transfer, it could detrimentally alter the contractual benefits of employees who had transferred, in a bid to harmonise its workforce's terms and conditions.