Mr Lawrence, Accountant For the v Respondent — 2019

This was an appeal by Minster Fisheries Ltd against a notice of underpayment and penalty issued by the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs under the National Minimum Wage Act 1998. The original notice dated 28 February 2019 referred to arrears of £838.71 and a penalty of £1,603.14. After the arrears were paid, a replacement notice was issued on 3 July 2019 showing a reduced penalty of £546.90, and both parties accepted that nothing further was due under the notice and that there was in fact an amount due back to the appellant because of the reduced penalty.

The tribunal found that Mr Jack Lindon was an employee of the appellant company under a contract of employment and therefore a worker for the purposes of the Act and Regulations. It rejected any suggestion that the employment relationship was a sham or pretence. The tribunal also held that there was no small business exemption to the National Minimum Wage provisions. Regulation 57 did not apply because the work in issue was running a fish and chip shop, not work done in relation to a family household, and the Respondent had not counted household tasks in its calculation.

The decisive issue was Regulation 58. The tribunal accepted that Mr Lindon was a member of Miss Chauda’s family, resided in the family home and participated in running the family business. It held that Minster Fisheries Ltd was, in substance, a family business because its officers and shareholders were members of the Chauda family, and that nothing in the Regulations prevented a limited company from being treated as a family business for this purpose. On that basis the arrangement fell within the family business exclusion, the appeal succeeded, and the notice of underpayment and penalty was rescinded.