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06 May 2010 / Nicholas Dobson
Issue: 7416 / Categories: Features , Employment
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The changing face of TUPE

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Nicholas Dobson examines an eternal well-spring of legal surprises

In Ward Hadaway v Capsticks and others (UKEAT/0471/09/SM) the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) had to grapple with the thorny issue of whether TUPE applied when a panel law firm lost a tender to provide legal services to a client body. Judgment was given on 25 March 2010. But first a look at the prequel.

Primeval TUPE

Before the fall, ie before old TUPE was taken in for reconstruction resulting in the sleek, new TUPE offered since 6 April 2006 by the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (SI 2006/246) there was endless dispute, litigation and uncertainty about whether in various different circumstances the old 1981 TUPE Regulations would apply to protect the employment of those employees affected when a public authority or other organisation contracted out functions that had previously been conducted in-house. For if TUPE did apply to a transfer of an undertaking all the rights, powers, duties and liabilities of the originating transferor organisation arising under the contracts of

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