Ms A Khorenzhaia v All Saints Retail Limited — 2019

Ms Khorenzhaia claimed that All Saints Retail Limited had made an unauthorised deduction from her final salary by retaining 50% of visa-related costs after she resigned. The tribunal found that she had received a revised offer letter on 3 November 2017 setting out a clawback clause for visa expenses if she left within two years, and that clause 6.2 of her contract also allowed deductions from salary for monies due. It found that she signed the revised offer letter at the start of her employment and had previously signified in writing her agreement to the deduction.

The tribunal accepted that some costs had originally been deducted incorrectly, including 50% of the Immigration Skills Charge and the Certificate of Sponsorship fee, but found that this was a genuine mistake. It recorded that the Respondent refunded those sums once the error was identified. It also found that the remaining deduction was for 50% of the correct visa expenses, calculated after those items were removed, and that the relevant contractual trigger was the Claimant’s resignation on 21 March 2019, less than two years after her employment began.

Applying section 13(1) and section 13(6) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, and referring to Potter v Hunt Contracts Limited, the tribunal held that the deduction was authorised by a written contractual provision and that the Claimant had agreed to it before the event that triggered it occurred. It further held that any issue about the Respondent’s Home Office licence was a separate matter and did not invalidate the contract between employer and employee. The unlawful deduction claim was therefore dismissed, and no monetary award was made.