TUPE - Temporary Cessation of Undertaking

[Thanks to Ed McFarlane of EEF for providing this case summary]

The EAT (HHJ Peter Clark) has handed down its decision in Wood v London Colney Parish Council, which is authority for the proposition that a temporary cessation of activity will not prevent a transfer of an undertaking.

The First Respondent, a Social Club, employed the Claimant as a bar steward, and he was dismissed after the Club handed back its lease on the bar to the Second Respondent, the Club then surrendering its premises licence. The Second Respondent took over the bar and later obtained its own premises licence, running the bar with its own people.

The EAT held that the economic entity, the bar, was merely temporarily suspended by the loss of the premises licence and as the economic entity did not cease, there was still a relevant transfer.