Jurisdiction of employment tribunal claims and working abroad

The Supreme Court has upheld the decision of the Court of Session in Scotland that people who live in the UK, who are employed by a British company, and who work overseas, are able to bring claims in the employment tribunal. Travelling from home in Great Britain to work outside of Great Britain does not put automatically claims outside the jurisdiction of the employment tribunals; each case is a matter of fact and degree.

Mr Ravat will now be able to being his claim for unfair dismissal in the Employment Tribunal.

Facts

Ismail Ravat was employed by Halliburton Manufacturing, a UK company based near Aberdeen. He lived in Preston, in Lancashire. He was employed in 1990, and made redundant in 2006.

Between 1990 – 1995 Mr Ravat worked in London. In 1995 he went to work in Algeria; in 2003 he accepted a transfer to Libya. He lived in the UK all the while. He would spend 28 days working in Libya and then 28 days not working in the UK. As Lord Hope said, “in effect he was job sharing, working back-to-back with another employee.”

The company Mr Ravat worked for was a German subsidiary of Halliburton; they paid Halliburton for Mr Ravat’s services.

Mr Ravat’s pay was on the structure used for UK based employees; he was paid in sterling, into a UK bank account; he paid income tax and national insurance on the PAYE system. When he started work in Libya in 2003 he sought an assurance from his manager that he would still have the protection of UK law. He was given that assurance.

He had been given a document that overseas managers were given that told them to to use the Aberdeen HR department. When he was made redundant the decision was made in Aberdeen, and administered there. His grievance, redundancy negotiations, and appeal against dismissal all took place in Aberdeen.

His redundancy was paid in accordance with the Employment Rights Act 1996.

Case Law

Lawson v Serco

Other than employees working in the Great Britain, Lord Hoffman identified two classes of employees whom the act covers.

First is peripatetic employees: people who move around for their employment should have their base used as the point of judgement. In this case an airline pilot, whose base was at Heathrow, fell under the jurisdiction of the act.

Second is expatriate employees: people who work abroad will only be within the act in exceptional circumstances. Usually this will involve working in a “social or political British enclave.”

Obviously neither of these situations fits with Mr Ravat’s circumstances.

Duncombe v Secretary of State for Children, Schools, and Families

Lady Hale made it clear that the examples set out by Lord Hoffman were not part of a “hard and fast rule” rather they were “examples of the application of the general principle.” This principle is a question of connection between Great Britain and the employment relationship. In this case two teachers were employed by the government to work in schools in Europe.

They were held to be working in an international enclave, not a British one; but their employment had no connection with the country where they worked. They, along with the claimant who worked in NATO establishments, had a “closer connection with Britain and with British employment law than with any other system of law.”

They were also contracted under English law, which led to an expectation that their cases would be dealt with under that law.

This decision

Following Lady Hale, the general principles of Lord Hoffman were applied to the facts. It was said that Parliament did not intend to give rights to people with “no connection with Great Briton at all.” But the language of the act does no confine its application to employment in Great Briton either.

It was said,

It will always be a question of fact and degree as to whether the connection is sufficiently strong to overcome the general rule that the place of employment is decisive.

In this case relevant factors included: the reassurance Mr Ravat had been given by his employer, the law of the contract, documentation he was given, redundancy being conducted in Great Briton. This all fitted with “a pattern which points quite strongly to British employment law.”