The claimant made claims for redundancy pay and for unfair dismissal pay and also appealed against a decision of the Department in its role as the statutory guarantor in respect of certain employment debts. The claimant asserted that there had been a relevant transfer (within the meaning of the TUPE Regulations) of the entity to which he was assigned at the time of that relevant transfer. The main implication of this assertion was that any liability which the Company would otherwise have had must have transferred to Mr Collins who took over the business.

The tribunal was satisfied that there was a relevant transfer of the entity to which the claimant was then assigned. As a result, any liabilities which the Company had had in relation to the claimant thereby were transferred to Mr Collins. In arriving at their conclusions on the TUPE issues the tribunal took account the following matters:

1. The kind of business carried before the putative relevant transfer and the kind being carried out afterwards were substantially the same. 
2. There was no gap between the cessation of the original business and the commencement of the “new” business. 
3. The “old” business and the “new” business traded from the same office. 
4. Many of the staff immediately became staff members of the “new” business.

Practical lessons

The claimant was entitled to a redundancy payment and an unfair dismissal award. However, the case is perhaps more important for the principles which the tribunal adopted in finding that a relevant transfer occurred. Whilst the 2006 Regulations clarified complex case law to define a relevant transfer as the "transfer of an economic entity which retains its identity", cases such as the index one provide practical guidance on what that definition means in reality.