Court rejects artificial use of TUPE

The Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE) and the acquired rights provisions do not confer additional benefits on employees or improve their situation, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
In Jackson v Computershare Investor Services plc the appeal court confirmed that TUPE does not give a transferred employee access to employment benefits other than those which the employee was entitled to before the transfer of the undertaking.

When Jackson joined Ci in January 1999, there were no terms relating to enhanced redundancy or severance payments in her contract of employment. In June 2004 her employment contract was transferred, under TUPE, to CIS which had an enhanced redundancy scheme. However, this drew a distinction between pre-March 2002 joiners and new entrants after 1 March 2002.

David E Grant, a barrister at Outer Temple Chambers, says the Court of Appeal rejected what it called the attempt to make artificial use of TUPE.
“Although it is unlikely that there will be further attempts to rely upon TUPE in this way,” he says, “the Court of Appeal is due to give judgment in Power v Regent Security Services Ltd on the question of whether an employee can rely upon the terms in his original contract of employment.”