When the business you work in is sold, or your employer loses a contract to provide services to a client, any changes affecting your employment might give rise to a claim. These are often called “TUPE claims” after the law – the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations – which gives TUPE its name.
Warning: the time limits for bringing all employment claims are really short, so you need to take specialist employment law advice quickly.
If the business that you work for is acquired by a new employer, the business might make changes to the workforce after this acquisition has taken place. For example, the board might decide that there are too many employees working in a particular division. The employer might decide to reduce its employees to ensure that the business is running in a profitable manner. Alternatively, your employer might decide that you need to relocate.
In certain circumstances, your employment and employment rights will be protected when there is a change to the business that you work for, or the division that you work in.
TUPE Claims FAQs
Some common situations are:
If your employer is bought out by another business
If the business that you work for is acquired by another business:
- your continued employment with the new business might be protected, meaning that your employment cannot be terminated before or after the purchase, except in specific circumstances.
- the terms and conditions of your employment might also be protected, meaning that they can’t be changed.
There are specific rules regarding whether your employment, and the terms and conditions of your employment, will be protected after the business that you work for has been purchased.
The rules surrounding this are complex and depend on a number of factors. It will be beneficial to talk to a specialist employment law solicitor if the business that you work for is transferring to someone else, and you want to identify whether the protection applies to your employment.
The following list indicates the factors that might apply in determining whether your employment will be protected, following the transfer of the business:
- whether the business that takes place after the purchase is the same as the business that took place before. Essentially, this question asks whether the activities that are carried on before and after the purchase are similar;
- whether the employees have transferred over in order to work in these functions;
- whether the businesses’ customers and suppliers are the same after the transfer as they were before the transfer
If the service that you are involved in providing has changed hands:
Your employment, and the terms and conditions of your employment, may be protected in the following circumstances:
- you work for a service that your employer provides in-house, and the business decides for this to be outsourced;
- you work for an outsourced service, and the business decides to bring this service in-house (insourcing);
- you work as part of a team delivering a particular service that is already outsourced (for another company), and the business that the service is provided to decides to change provider.
Again, there are various criteria that need to be satisfied to ensure that your employment, and its terms and conditions, are protected if one of the above occurs so as to fall into the TUPE compensation claim category. It will be necessary to speak to a specialised employment solicitor to identify if your employment is protected and what potential employment claims you may have. Examples of the types of factors that might mean that your employment is protected are as follows:
- the nature of the service that is provided is the same;
- the same employees are involved in providing the service before and after the service provider changed;
- the service is delivered to the same customer or group of customers.
If you would like more information on claiming, or you wish to discuss your situation, contact us today. If you require a more in-depth consultation, we offer 2-hour appointments for just £280 incl. vat, with no obligation to proceed further. You can book your employment consultation here.
Let us help you to claim the compensation you deserve.
