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ECM (VEHICLE DELIVERY SERVICE) LTD
v
B COX & OTHERS

TUPE

Court of Appeal (Mummery, Laws and Henry LJJ), 22nd July 1999

The Court of Appeal held that when deciding whether a TUPE transfer has occurred, a tribunal should take the whole range of factors into account as in Spijkers. It is an error of law, and a misunderstanding of Betts and Suzen, to regard whether the transferor refused to re-employ ‘transferring’ employees as the dominant question.

This is consistent with the EAT’s decision in OCS v Rudden (see bulletin 19th July 1999). It may no longer be such good advice (if it ever was!) to inform employers that refusing to take on any members of the existing workforce will significantly increase their chance of avoiding a TUPE transfer.


MR J A LLOYD
v
TAYLOR WOODROW CONSTRUCTION

Redundancy

EAT. An appeal against selection for redundancy, by way of rehearing, can cure the procedural defect whereby workers were not told of the selection criteria until 8 weeks after the dismissal.

For the transcript, see
http://wood.ccta.gov.uk/eat/eatjudgments.nsf/faf4a44f36aa53fc80256794004040c2/e1122416c4e82144802567b6004ca4c7?OpenDocument


TRIANGLE CARS
v
MISS A M HOOK

Unfair Dismissal

EAT. HHJ Altman confirms that tension between two employees is capable of being ‘some other substantial reason’ for a dismissal. However, this case is interesting because the tribunal hinted that the Polkey defence (i.e. s/he would probably have been dismissed even if a proper procedure had been followed) may not be applicable to unfair dismissal, as contrasted with redundancy, cases (para. 14).

For the transcript, see:
http://wood.ccta.gov.uk/eat/eatjudgments.nsf/faf4a44f36aa53fc80256794004040c2/2da23e6098cda045802567b50049f7f5?OpenDocument