Legal victory for employees

Dec 18 2007 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post

LIVERPOOL law firm EAD has won a major legal victory for employees throughout the UK with a key legal decision that will provide huge assistance to trade unions seeking to deal with the transfer of UK-based jobs to foreign jurisdictions.

The firm has successfully secured a significant clarification of the extent of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 and the Acquired Rights Directive.

The purpose of TUPE is to protect employees if the business in which they are employed changes hands. Its effect is to move employees and any liabilities associated with them from the old employer to the new employer.

The decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Holis Metal Industries v The GMB and Newell means TUPE can apply in a situation where a foreign business purchases a business and then transfers the operation of the undertaking outside the EU.

Stephen Pinder, partner and head of EAD’s Employment Law Unit said: “At the heart of this case was an issue previously untested in UK case law, namely whether TUPE applies to a transfer of a business which, after transfer, is based outside both the UK and the EU.

“It is of huge potential significance in the context of modern off-shoring exercises – for example, in the context of the transfer of call centres to the Indian sub-continent.”

EAD represented the GMB in the case.