Powerhouse Retail Ltd and others v Burroughs and others: CA 7 Oct 2004

The court considered the non-admission of part time workers to pension scheme benefits after a transfer of employment.
Held: (Pill LJ) While the effect of TUPE was that the continuing contract of employment was deemed always to have been with the transferee, the pension rights had been removed from it and it could not be treated as if they had not. This reasoning fits with the wording of section 2(4) of the 1970 Act: ‘The employment under a contract of employment about which complaint is made is the contract between the transferor and employee, with its equality clause providing pension rights, and the post-transfer contract of employment, shorn as it is by statute of existing pension rights, is not the specific contract of employment for the purposes of section 2(4). The claim is based on the previous contract and, in so far as its terms have not been transferred, it terminated upon the transfer and time began to run. The existence, in each of the contracts, of an equality clause does not mean that they can be treated as the same contract.’

Judges:

Pill, Jonathan Parker LJJ and Laddie J

Citations:

[2004] EWCA Civ 1281, [2004] OPLR 363, [2005] ICR 222, [2004] IRLR 979, [2004] Pens LR 377

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Equal Pay Act 1970

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Appeal fromPowerhouse Retail Ltd and others v Burroughs and others EAT 2004
. .

Cited by:

Appeal fromPowerhouse Retail Ltd and others v Burroughs and others; Preston and others v Wolverhampton Healthcare NHS Trust and others (No 3) HL 8-Mar-2006
The appellants said they had been had been discriminated against on the grounds of their sex by the TUPE Regulations. Their discrimination cases had been dismissed as out of time.
Held: The employees’ appeals were dismissed: ‘A statute cannot . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Employment, Discrimination

Updated: 21 June 2022; Ref: scu.215927