(1) Mr Richard Moore (2) Mr Eamonn Moore v The Insolvency Service Finance Section — 2019

The claimants were employees of ER Moore Construction Ltd, which entered creditors voluntary liquidation on 28 January 2015. UKELS then handled insolvency-related claims on behalf of the employees and the Insolvency Service made payments based on the information supplied. The Secretary of State later investigated UKELS and found that false or misleading information had been included. The respondent's ET3 calculations showed that each claimant had been overpaid by £2,815.86.

At the hearing in Croydon on 10 July 2019, the claimants said they could not understand how the calculations had been made, and Mr E Moore said he had not received the same wage payments as Mr R Moore. The tribunal noted that the claimants no longer had their own records because they had been handed to UKELS, and it accepted that there was no factual basis before it on which to interfere with the repayment calculations put forward by the Insolvency Service.

The tribunal held that the claims were registered under section 170 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, which concerns references about employer liability and the amount of an employer's payment in relation to applications under section 166. It concluded that that provision did not extend to reviewing payments demanded back by the Insolvency Service because of overpayments caused by inaccurate information. For that reason, and also because there was no evidence in the claimants' favour, the claims were dismissed.