Mrs S Kotonou-Ramnarain v Accountancy Business Centre Digital Limited — 2022

The tribunal found that the claimant's National Insurance record showed no earnings between tax years 2003-2004 and 2007-2008, and on the balance of probabilities it concluded that she did no work for ABC UK during that period. It treated the 2017 reference letter stating that she had been employed for 15 years as unreliable. The tribunal then addressed the later period and concluded that the payments made to the claimant were a £5,400 per annum stipend or allowance rather than wages under a contract of employment.

It rejected the claimant's evidence that she flagged emails and post, communicated with clients, scheduled meetings, attended client meetings as a personal assistant, did photocopying and printing, posted mail, or arranged business trips. The tribunal also found that some design work was done through her own company, Tan2lize Limited, rather than under any direct contractual relationship with ABC UK. On that basis it held that there was no consideration from the claimant and therefore no legally binding contract with Mr Kotonou, ABC UK, or the respondent. The claimant was not an employee or worker, so her claims for unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal, holiday pay, and failure to provide employment particulars were dismissed.

In the alternative, the tribunal said that if there had been a contract and a dismissal, the effective date of termination would have been 16 November 2020, when the P45 was issued. It would have found the reason for dismissal to be redundancy after Mr Kotonou's death. The tribunal said that the absence of any procedure would have made that dismissal unfair, but compensation would have been limited to three weeks at full salary and then reduced by 100% because a fair redundancy dismissal would have followed in any event. It also rejected the respondent's invitation to find that the claimant had acted vexatiously.