Mr E Huseynov v Laraka Limited — 2021

The claimant brought a claim for unauthorised deductions from wages, saying he had not been paid for about nine months apart from a few small payments. The respondent said that, apart from the June 2021 pay and holiday entitlement, it had paid him in cash at his request. The claimant confirmed he was not bringing discrimination or breach of contract claims in these proceedings.

The tribunal found the respondent's account more plausible and held that the claimant had agreed to be paid £590 per month in cash until May 2021. In reaching that conclusion, it relied on the claimant's employment being his only income apart from a student loan, the improbability of working for nine months without pay, the absence of written payment requests until 27 May 2021, the payslips and P60/P45 records, the 28 February 2021 email exchange in which Ms Lanina told the accountant that he was paid by cash, and Mrs Batsuuri's evidence that she had seen cash handed to the claimant.

The tribunal also found that the smaller payments made from Ms Lanina's personal bank account were personal loans to a friend, not wages. It therefore dismissed the claim for alleged deductions up to 31 May 2021.

For June 2021, the respondent accepted that £1,400.47 was due for salary and accrued but untaken holiday, and the tribunal ordered payment of that amount. The claimant also sought additional consequential loss for parking tickets, lost holiday, and disruption to mobile and internet services, but the tribunal did not award any further compensation, saying it would only have been sympathetic to bank charges or interest and that the other losses were not sufficiently attributable to the unpaid sum on the evidence. No costs order was made against the claimant.