Mr J Lutas v WL Business Enterprises Ltd (in creditor’s voluntary liquidation) — 2025

The claimant succeeded on three separate unlawful deduction from wages complaints and also obtained an additional award for the respondent's failure to provide a compliant written statement of employment particulars. The respondent did not attend the video hearing, and the tribunal accepted the claimant's evidence, assisted by a Portuguese translator, together with the documents that were available. The claimant withdrew the statutory sick pay element of his claim after confirming that the correct amounts had since been paid.

On salary, the tribunal found that the parties had agreed by email in March 2019 that the claimant would be paid £1,800 net per calendar month together with accommodation, food and four trips to Portugal each year, even though the signed contract did not record those terms. It found that the respondent unilaterally reduced the monthly payment to £1,500 net from 1 April 2020. The tribunal treated the underpayments as a series of unlawful deductions, rejected the effect of the section 23(4A) ERA backstop following its own analysis of Afshar, and awarded £15,762.94 gross after grossing up the net loss.

The tribunal also found that the food allowance became wages when the respondent moved from providing cooked food to paying cash from 1 May 2024. It held that the respondent unlawfully failed to pay £286 on 1 June 2024, 1 July 2024 and 1 August 2024, and awarded £858 gross. On national minimum wage, the tribunal held that the claimant's work was unmeasured work, that his driving of colleagues between accommodation and sites was travelling for the purposes of that work, and that the accommodation provided by the respondent had to be brought into the calculation as an offset. It found that the claimant was underpaid from January 2024 to April 2024 inclusive and, after removing overlap with the salary award, awarded £3,116.11.

For the written statement complaint, the tribunal held that the contract only partially complied with section 1 ERA 1996 because it omitted or inadequately stated key particulars, including remuneration, working days, sick pay detail and agreed benefits. Because the respondent had not attended and there were no exceptional circumstances, the tribunal awarded the claimant the higher discretionary additional award of four weeks' pay, limited by the statutory cap to £2,800. The total award was £22,537.05.