![]() |
[Home] [Databases] [World Law] [Multidatabase Search] [Help] [Feedback] [DONATE] | |||||||||
United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal |
||||||||||
|
THE FUTURE OF BAILII DEPENDS ON USERS LIKE YOU
If you want to be able to use BAILII in the future, please consider making a donation to celebrate BAILII's 25 years of providing free access to law.
Your donation, no matter the size, will help BAILII maintain the legal databases that you and many other users rely on. If every visitor this month gives just £5, it will have a significant impact on BAILII's ability to continue providing this vital service.
| ||||||||||
|
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> United Kingdom Employment Appeal Tribunal >> Mach Recruitment Ltd v Oliveira (TRANSFER OF UNDERTAKINGS) [2025] EAT 107 (01 August 2025) URL: https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKEAT/2025/107.html Cite as: [2025] EAT 107 |
||||||||||
[New search]
[Context
]
[View without highlighting]
[Printable PDF version]
[Help]
Fetter Lane, London, EC4A 1NL |
||
B e f o r e :
____________________
MACH RECRUITMENT LTD |
Appellant |
|
| - and - |
||
| MRS MARIA OLIVEIRA |
Respondent |
____________________
MR H OLIVEIRA represented the Respondent
Hearing date: 17 July 2025
____________________
Crown Copyright ©
SUMMARY
TRANSFER OF UNDERTAKINGS
In a case where the tribunal decided that there was a sufficient "grouping" for a service provision change under TUPE, there was evidence on which the tribunal could so find. The tribunal's decision was not perverse.
JOHN BOWERS KC, SITTING AS A DEPUTY HIGH COURT JUDGE:
The legal framework
(1) There must be an organised grouping of employees. On a natural meaning of the phrase it must be the employer who organises a group of employees;
(2) The organised grouping within the putative transferor must have as its principal purpose carrying out the relevant activities not in general but for the particular client which activities will be undertaken by the putative transferee. It is not sufficient to satisfy the Regulation that a department carries out certain work. It must be organised for the principal purpose of carrying out that work for the client in question;
(3) The relevant time at which there is to be an organised grouping of employees which has as its principal purpose the carrying out of the activities concerned on behalf of the client is immediately before the transfer
The first stage of this exercise is to identify the service which company B was providing to the client. The next step is to list the activities which the staff of company B performed in order to provide that service. The third step is to identify the employee or employees of company B who ordinarily carried out those activities. The fourth step is to consider whether company B organised that employee or those employees into a "grouping" for the principal purpose of carrying out the listed activities.
a. The relevant time at which there must be an organised grouping is immediately before the transfer (Amaryllis);
b. The relevant "organiser" of the group is the employer (i.e. the transferor) (Amaryllis).
Submissions for the Appellant
(1) the Claimant's work was always with Butcher's;
(2) It was always as an Alutray Operative;
(3) the Claimant worked with and alongside the same people throughout, except when someone would leave and be replaced by a new person.
Submissions for the Respondent
Lack of evidence
Discussion: Reasoning on organised grouping