TUPE applied to transfers across international borders, and the jurisdictional questions that follow. Holis Metal Industries Ltd v GMB; Xerox Business Services Philippines Inc v Zeb.
Jurisdiction; territorial reach; unfair dismissal; peripatetic and expatriate employees. Three conjoined appeals. Lord Hoffmann declined to formulate a verbal test of territorial scope but held that s.94(1) ERA 1996 applies, as a general principle, to the employee working in Great Britain at the time of dismissal. A peripatetic employee is treated as employed at the base where assignments begin and end, judged by how the contract operated in practice. An expatriate working and based abroad qualifies only in exceptional cases: posted abroad by a British employer for the purposes of a business carried on in Great Britain, working in what amounts to a British enclave abroad, or otherwise showing equally strong connections with Great Britain and British employment law [IDS 2.116]. Duncombe and Ravat later refined this: a sufficiently strong connection suffices for those working partly here; those working wholly abroad need a much stronger connection than with any other system [IDS 2.115].
TUPE; international; TUPE can apply to a transfer from the UK to a non-EU country (Israel).
Jurisdiction; EU rights; directly effective EU rights can be enforced in the UK even if the employment is outside Great Britain.
Jurisdiction; territorial scope; teachers employed by the UK government in European Schools were within UK jurisdiction.
TUPE; cross-border; dismissal for refusing to transfer abroad can be an ETO reason.
Jurisdiction; post-Brexit; established that S.15C CJJA allows claims against foreign co-respondents if expedient.
ET Case No.2200381/22 - TUPE; territorial scope; service provision change rules require an organised grouping in Great Britain (not NI).