(sitting alone) Mr A Currie v Represented by: - as above Ralphael Pacitti and 1 other — 2019

This was a preliminary hearing on who employed Mr A Currie and Ms L McCulloch at the date of dismissal, for claims seeking notice pay and a redundancy payment. Mr Currie said the claimants had understood the first respondent to be their employer because he paid their wages and they had received no written notice of any change. The first respondent's position was that the claimants had originally been employed by a partnership, that the business transferred to the second respondent from 1 February 2014, and that the third respondent became the employer from June 2018; the third respondent accepted that account.

After a short adjournment and consideration of the productions, the claimants accepted that the third respondent was in fact their employer as a matter of law at the relevant date. Mr Currie then formally withdrew the claims against the first and second respondents. The tribunal dismissed those claims following withdrawal and recorded that there would be no further application from the first respondent for expenses or otherwise.

The claims against the third respondent were remitted to a one-day final hearing to be fixed in June 2019. The outstanding issues were whether the claimants' employment with the third respondent was continuous from the commencement of employment, and if not when employment with the third respondent began, together with whether redundancy payment and notice pay were due and in what amount. The tribunal noted that resolving continuity could require analysis of transfers between legal entities and the possible operation of the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006.