EAT Transfer of Undertakings: Service Provision Change
The Appellant ran a ‘park-and-ride’ service under a contract with the local council by virtue of which it received a substantial subsidy. The Second Respondent, having grown impatient with a tendering process, decided to run a commercial service on the same route, using its own staff and buses, without a subsidy from the Council. As a result the Council terminated its contract with the Appellant.
The Appellant’s case was that the Second Respondent was a subsequent contractor carrying out the same activities ‘on the client’s behalf’, the local council being the client. The Employment Judge rejected this argument, holding that the Second Respondent was not carrying out the activities on the local council’s behalf, but as a commercial venture on its own behalf.
Held: the Employment Judge did not err in law. The Employment Judge’s approach focussed upon the ordinary meaning of the service provision change provisions within the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 and applied those provisions in a commonsense and pragmatic way. Metropolitan Resources Ltd v Churchill Dulwich Ltd [2009] IRLR 700 EAT and Hunter v McCarrick [2013] IRLR 26 CA applied.
David Richardson HHJ
[2016] UKEAT 0035 – 16 – 0308
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 24 January 2022; Ref: scu.570385
