Ms Nuala Toner (Solicitor) For the First v Respondent — 2022

This was a preliminary TUPE hearing concerning five former Bathstore employees. The tribunal held that regulation 4 of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 did not apply to any of their contracts. It found that the whole Bathstore business did not transfer to the Second Respondent, and that the relevant transfer was of 44 individual stores, each of which was a distinct economic entity.

The tribunal accepted that Bathstore had a wider business structure involving stores, head office support, installation services and franchise support, but concluded that the installation and franchise elements were ancillary and that the business as a whole did not transfer. It rejected the claimants' case that the 44 stores together formed a separate part undertaking before the transfer. In the judge's view, that grouping had no independent structure or autonomy before the administration and was not a discrete cost centre.

Applying the factors from Spijkers and later authorities, the tribunal found that Homebase acquired only the 44 stores, some stock, the right to use the Bathstore name and limited transitional services, but not customers, the warehouse operation, or the wider Bathstore enterprise. It also found that some former Bathstore employees were later recruited by Homebase, but the evidence did not show that this meant the broader business had transferred.

The tribunal further found that none of the five claimants was assigned to any transferred entity. The four store-based claimants were assigned to their own base stores, none of which was one of the 44 acquired stores. Ms Lahiffe worked across about 70 stores, including around 30 of the 44 transferred stores and about 40 others retained by the First Respondent, so she was not assigned to the transferred stores either. The judgment records that other aspects of the case continued, but the TUPE issue was resolved against the claimants.