In Alemo-Herron v Parkwood Leisure, the European Court of Justice upheld the Court of Appeal decision made in this case in 2010 that TUPE does not require a transferee employer to be bound by a collective agreement made by the transferor employer (and to which the transferee employer was not party) subsequent to the one that was in force at the time of the TUPE transfer.
The ECJ said that this was because the Acquired Rights Directive, on which the TUPE regulations are based, does not seek to ensure anything more than a ‘fair balance’ between the interests of the employees and the transferee employer.
Point to note -
- The Government is proposing to amend the TUPE regulations in the New Year. One proposal is that, once a TUPE transfer has taken place, a transferee employer should be free, as in this case, to negotiate contractual changes with its workforce in the normal way. We shall keep you posted on further developments.
This article is part of the UK Employment Law Update for September 2013