Claimant v Travelex UK Ltd (in administration) (debarred) (“TUK”) and The Secretary of State for Business — 2022

This was a reserved judgment on a preliminary TUPE issue heard on 4 to 11 April 2022. The tribunal considered whether the employment of any lead claimant transferred from TUK to Travelex Central Services Limited or Travelex Foreign Coin Services Ltd on 6 August 2020. It examined the unredacted transfer agreements, the parties' witness evidence, and the submissions made for the claimants and the rule 35 participants.

The tribunal found that there had been a transfer of part of TUK's business to Central Services and a separate transfer of the Heathrow-related business to Foreign Coin. It accepted that the Covid-19 lockdown had caused a temporary cessation of activity, but held that this did not prevent the economic entity retaining its identity. It also held that the fact that employees had been given redundancy notices did not, either as a matter of law or on the facts, mean that they had ceased to be assigned to the relevant business before 6 August 2020.

Applying regulation 3 and regulation 4 of TUPE 2006, and taking account of the case law it cited, the tribunal concluded that Mr Sharma, Ms McInally, Ms Martin, Mr Webb and Mr Rameez were assigned to the part of TUK's business that transferred to Central Services. It further concluded that Ms Thakkar, Mr Thomas, Mr Pinto and Ms Lloyd were assigned to the part of TUK's business that transferred to Foreign Coin, and that the recognition of continuity of service for the Heathrow 'Top 55' was consistent with that conclusion.

The tribunal therefore found in favour of all the lead claimants on the preliminary issue. It made orders permitting amendment of the claims to add Central Services or Foreign Coin as respondents and joined those companies, while noting that there might still be a later argument based on Litster if raised in response to the orders. No monetary remedy was determined in this judgment.