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13 January 2017
Issue: 7729 / Categories: Features
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Book review: The Law of TUPE Transfers

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“His ability to explain core concepts & the nuances is a wonder to behold”

Author: Charles Wynn-Evans
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198778912
Price: £110

The Unfortunates by little known author B S Johnson was published in a box. Inside the box were chapters marked “first” and “last”. The remainder of the chapters were individual, unnumbered and could be read in any order.

Generations of doubt

When I first encountered TUPE I did wonder whether it was a later and even more extreme work penned by Mr Johnson. The convoluted language, the abandonment of privity of contract and the inchoate “undertaking” all hinted that a maniac had been let loose on the 1981 Regulations. That so short a set of measures has generated generations of doubt proves how complex a subject the law is.

Employment law is as fickle as ever. The fact that to this day we have arguments about that most fundamental of issues—status—shows that the legal landscape is ever shifting. I once suggested as a joke that you could

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