Mr A Karapeev v Clipfine Limited OPEN PRELIMINARY HEARING — 2020

The preliminary hearing was held by telephone before Employment Judge Truscott QC sitting alone. The tribunal heard the claimant's evidence that he had worked for the respondent from 2014 through a number of agencies, but there was no documentary evidence to support that account and the claimant's ET1 did not identify a period of employment. The evidence before the tribunal instead showed that the claimant incorporated A K Servicing Limited in October 2015 and that, in 2018/19, that company contracted with Riverside Construction (Essex) Limited. The tribunal noted texts from Riverside identifying weekly payments, remittance advice addressed to AK Servicing Ltd, and a Riverside reference dated 31 May 2019 for work from 19 November 2018 to 17 May 2019.

Applying section 94 and section 108 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the tribunal held that the claimant had not established that the respondent was his employer for any period, and in any event had not shown two years' continuous employment ending with the effective date of termination. For those reasons the tribunal found that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the unfair dismissal claim, and the claim was dismissed.