ABSTRACT
Prior to Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations (TUPE), an employee had a right to notice if his employment was terminated on a transfer of the trade, business or undertaking in which he was engaged but he had no right to insist on transferring across with the business to the transferee. While the Acquired Rights Directive (ARD) excluded only certain parts of pension schemes from the transfer principle, TUPE excluded occupational pension schemes in the totality. The Industrial Tribunal in the Perry case thought that the Directive contemplated wider protection than that currently afforded by the Social Security Acts in conferring entitlement to a deferred pension. Two further cases, reported in 1997, have both shaken certain commonly held assumptions about the applicability of ARD and TUPE to transfers of staff engaged on local authority work either as part of the Direct Service Organisation or employed by outside contractors.
