Employment Law Advocates

TUPE Regulations protect an employee’s rights when the part of the business they work for is sold or transferred. For example, where business A is bought by business B, the rights of the employees of business A will be safeguarded by TUPE when they become employed by business B. Other examples include, where a service is put out to tender, re-tendered or brought back “in house” – for example, where the cleaning of a council building is subcontracted out, the winner of the tender must employ the cleaners who used to clean the building for the council.

An employee is entitled to carry over the contractual terms that he/she had at their previous employer to their new employer and if an employee is dismissed because of a business transfer, then they are deemed to have been unfairly dismissed.

This is a particularly complex area of law that we have a lot of experience in. Last year, one of our advocates appeared at the Employment Appeal Tribunal in Power v Regent Security Services [2007] IRLR 226. Authority for the proposition that a transferee employer cannot rely upon TUPE Regulations and ECJ case law to resile from a contractual agreement entered into by reason of a transfer. This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal and is the leading case concerning the rights of employees upon a transfer of undertakings.