Mr Samuel Adjei v United Travel Group Limited — 2020

This was a preliminary hearing on 1 and 2 September 2020 at which Employment Judge M Warren considered only the respondent's illegality defence. The claimants were taxi drivers for United Travel Group Limited and their claims concerned holiday pay and rest breaks under the Working Time Regulations. The tribunal accepted unchallenged evidence from the respondent's witnesses about onboarding, the tax-compliance terms in the driver agreements, and the fact that both claimants had under-declared income on their tax returns before later filing updated returns and paying fines.

Applying Holman v Johnson, Hall v Woolston Hall Leisure Ltd, Patel v Mirza and Okedina v Chikale, the tribunal held that the claims were not founded on an illegal act and that the illegality defence should not succeed. It found that the purpose of the tax rules was to ensure tax is properly paid, but that the claims themselves related to holiday pay and rest breaks, which are health and safety matters. The tribunal said that denying the claims would be disproportionate, that tax evasion has its own enforcement regime, and that refusing access to employment rights would amount to overkill.

The tribunal recorded that the claimants' under-declaration of income was deplorable, but said that allowing the claims to proceed would not endorse that conduct or harm the integrity of the legal system. No merits decision was made on worker status or entitlement to holiday pay and rest breaks at this hearing; those substantive issues were listed for hearing on 26 to 29 April 2021.