Atalian Servest Limited v Bidvest Noonan (UK) Limited — 2024

The Claimant alleged that the Respondent failed to provide employee liability information in connection with a service provision change involving 265 employees based in Northern Ireland. The claim was pleaded under regulation 12 of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006, and the preliminary issue was whether the Great British Employment Tribunal had jurisdiction to hear that claim given that the relevant transfer took place in Northern Ireland.

The Tribunal held that TUPE GB did not apply to the pleaded service provision change because the organised grouping of employees was situated in Northern Ireland, not Great Britain, and because the service provision change provisions of TUPE GB are disapplied in relation to Northern Ireland. It also held that any claim under the Northern Ireland service provision change regulations would fall within the jurisdiction of the Northern Irish Industrial Tribunal, not the Great British Employment Tribunal.

The Tribunal rejected the Claimant's reliance on the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgments Act 1982, the Brussels Recast, the Rome Convention, the Bleuse principle, Simpson v Intralinks, and arguments based on a sufficiently strong connection with Great Britain. It concluded that the claim had been brought in the wrong Tribunal and under the wrong regulations, and dismissed the claim; it stated that if dismissal were the wrong approach it would have struck out the claim as having no reasonable prospect of success.