Mr G Baldwin v Firexo Ltd — 2024

Mr G Baldwin joined Firexo Ltd on 1 February 2019 as Group Operations Director on £80,000 plus a £6,000 car allowance. The tribunal accepted that he was an employee from February 2019 to April 2019, but found that in April 2019 the parties genuinely agreed to move him to self-employed status for financial reasons. After that change he invoiced through his consultancy company, tax and NI were not operated through PAYE, and the tribunal found that the subsequent arrangements were reflected in the parties' actual dealings rather than being a sham.

The tribunal then examined the disputed period from April 2019 to July 2023 by reference to mutuality of obligation, personal performance, control, and the other features of the relationship, citing Ready Mixed Concrete and Autoclenz. It found there was no mutuality of obligation between March 2020 and February 2022, when the respondent could not afford to pay him, he stopped submitting invoices, and he worked elsewhere for part of that time. It also found that personal performance was required, and that the respondent retained some control over what he did, but gave those factors less weight than the pay and tax arrangements and the parties' own description of the relationship.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant returned to work in July 2021 and later invoiced again from February 2022, but found there was no change in status when he resumed work or when invoicing restarted. It concluded that the post-April 2019 relationship was not consistent with employment and that he was not an employee from April 2019 to July 2023. As a result, he did not have two years' qualifying service under section 108(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the ordinary unfair dismissal complaint was not well-founded and was dismissed.