Ms Ahira (Counsel) For the v Respondent — 2025

The claimant, a dentist working under an Associate Agreement signed on 15 November 2021, brought an unlawful deduction from wages claim about payments for May, June and July 2022. The tribunal found that he resigned on 7 July 2022, that the contract had ended by at latest August 2022 after his bicycle accident on 1 August 2022, and that the dispute concerned the respondent’s failure to pay sums due for the final months of work and the deductions it made from those sums.

The tribunal preferred the claimant’s figures for the amounts billed in May, June and July 2022 and rejected his case that the 5 July payment was not intended to relate to May work. It held that the respondent retained the June and July monies under its interpretation of the contract, but that the proper contractual calculation for the retention figure was 40% of the average monthly charge for licence, not 40% of the gross private fees billed. On that interpretation, the maximum contractual retention was £7,073.60.

The tribunal accepted some deductions from the retention figure, including £1,040 for laboratory work and at least £975.50 for overpayments, but it was not satisfied that the respondent had properly evidenced broader negligence or remedial-work deductions. It declined to speculate about those deductions, noted the absence of a proper breakdown within the time required by clause 18.7, and rejected any attempt to justify withholding wages by equitable set-off. Applying s.13 ERA 1996 and the cited authorities, it concluded that the respondent had unlawfully deducted £29,384.40 from the claimant’s wages and ordered payment of that gross sum.