Elle Kim v Finablr Ltd and 3 others — 2022

Elle Kim signed a contract dated 14 July 2019 with Finablr Ltd, started work on 1 August 2019 and was paid £240,000 a year for work on the Astryve project. The tribunal accepted that the arrangement had been intended to be temporary and that a UK vehicle was contemplated, but it did not treat the written contract as the only starting point; looking at all the circumstances, it found that no later change of employer actually occurred.

After the group crisis in early 2020, Ms Kim largely did no project work apart from a B2c PowerPoint prepared at Robert Miller's request. She repeatedly asked to be paid and to be moved to a UK company, and she resigned with immediate effect on 19 April 2021 because salary and expenses had not been paid. The tribunal accepted that this was a constructive dismissal, but there was no unfair dismissal claim because she had less than two years' service.

The claims against UAE Exchange UK Ltd failed. The tribunal rejected the arguments that there had been a TUPE transfer, that Finablr Ltd was acting as its agent, or that Ms Kim had been part of an economic entity with Robert Miller and Robert Moorhouse. It found that she was not part of the salvage operation, had only limited work-related interaction with Robert Miller, and was largely economically inactive after February 2020. Claims against Finablr Plc were stayed because it had entered administration, and claims against Finablr Ventures Holdings Ltd were dismissed.

Against Finablr Ltd, the tribunal found unlawful deductions from wages of £248,307.72, calculated on the basis of unpaid salary from March 2020 to 19 April 2021. It also ordered £6,258.48 holiday pay for 2021, found that unpaid expenses, pension contributions and notice pay were all due in contract, but capped the combined contractual recovery at £25,000. No Acas uplift was added. The total monetary orders made were £279,566.20.