LT Cleaning Services Ltd v MTM Environment Care Limited — 2020

This was a preliminary hearing in a claim by LT Cleaning Services Ltd against MTM Environment Care Limited under Regulation 12 of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006. The claim concerned an alleged failure to provide Employee Liability Information before the termination of a cleaning contract, and the tribunal identified the relevant employee as Mr Parker. The contract ended on 15 August 2019, and the tribunal calculated the primary presentation deadline as 14 November 2019.

The claim was presented on 6 January 2020, after ACAS conciliation had also been commenced on that date. The tribunal held that the conciliation did not extend time because it began after the primary limitation period had already expired. The claimant's case was that the director, Mrs McGuinness, did not know from her own research that such a claim could be made or that there was a time limit, and the tribunal accepted that it was not reasonably practicable for her to have presented the complaint by 14 November 2019.

However, the tribunal drew a distinction between the claimant company and its advisers. It found that experienced advisers could reasonably have been expected to know, or look up, the applicable time limit and to know that it had expired. On the evidence, the advisers knew of Mr Parker's actual claim by 16 December 2019 at the latest, and had known of the potential claim some two or three weeks earlier. The tribunal held that a working week at most was a reasonable period to seek urgent instructions and submit the Regulation 12 claim, which meant the claim could reasonably have been presented no later than 23 December 2019.

The tribunal rejected the submission that the matter involved a discretion to extend time in the interests of justice, noting that this was not an Equality Act case. Because the claim was presented outside the permitted time limit, it was dismissed.