Weekly Issue 428

Tribunal fees deter claimants

Acas has published a report which shows that a quarter of claimants who could not settle their case with their employer through Early Conciliation (EC) were put off from lodging a claim because of the fee.

Automatic transfer

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) held in NHS Direct NHS Trust v Gunn that the transfer of an employee’s contract under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE) cannot be regarded as an application for employment, as contracts transfer over automatically under TUPE to the new employer.

Apportioning pay

Employers are entitled to withhold payment when their employees go on strike, but how should it be calculated? In Hartley and ors v King Edward VI College, the Court of Appeal held that the starting point for working out how much of the salary is referable to a particular day must be the terms of the contract, not the Apportionment Act.