EAT National Minimum Wage – Lorne Stewart paid for employees to attend courses on condition they signed an agreement to repay all or part of the cost of the course if they left within two years and providing for the money to be deducted from their final salary payment. The deduction of that money led to the final salary payments of a number of employees who had resigned within the two years being prima facie below the minimum wage. HMRC issued a Notice of Underpayment, which Lorne Stewart appealed. The issue was whether the money deducted came within regulation 33(a) of the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 and in particular whether the liability to repay was ‘in respect of conduct of the worker, or any other event, in respect of which he is contractually liable’.
It was held that for an event to come within the words ‘any other event’ it had to have some relationship to conduct by the worker in the sense that the worker should in some way be responsible for the event in question.
In this case the employee had voluntarily resigned before the expiry of the two years; this was ‘any other event’ in that sense and Lorne Stewart were therefore entitled to deduct the repayment for the purposes of the national minimum wage.
Shanks HHJ
[2014] UKEAT 0250 – 14 – 1311
Bailii
National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 33(a), National Minimum Wages Act 1998
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Commissioners of Revenue and Customs v Leisure Employment Services Limited EAT 28-Mar-2006
The defendant employed seasonal workers. They deducted from their salaries before payment, fees for accomodation provided.
Held: The deductions reduced the payments below the national minimum wage and were unlawful.
Elis J said: ‘I take . .
Cited – Leisure Employment Services Ltd v Revenue and Customs CA 16-Feb-2007
The company appealed a finding that it had been paying workers at less than the minimum hourly rate. Its workers resided at their places of work, and deductions were made toward the cost of providing accomodation etc. The company claimed that the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.540268