UK Employee Of US Company Redundancy Question

mattbr1973

I have a bit of an odd employment set up with a US company I've been working at for just under 3 years and they've just made me redundant by are not going to honour the 3 months PILON clause in my contract as they have said my contract is with a European entity that no longer exists, so they will only offer me 30 days as a payment. I wanted some advice on whether I might be able to challenge this in any way. The background is as follows:

My original employment contracts was with the EU division of this company, but as they had no UK office I had deal with my own tax payments as if I was self employed. The contract did state I was an employee though and PILON upon termination was 3 months basic salary.

I was paid by the EU company for about 2 months and then started being paid by their North American company instead, so I presume it was around this time the EU entity was dissolved. The North American entity have been paying me each month ever since, so about 2 and a half years. I have to send them invoices each month though as they couldn't put me on their US payroll because I'm in the UK.

They have now made me redundant but said they won't honour the 3 month PILON as my contract was with the EU entity, which no longer exists and the contracts were never transferred over to the NA entity. They also can't find a copy of my contract countersigned by anyone at the company, only by me.

I would have expected my contract and the terms to be automatically transferred over to the North American entity when they started paying me my salary instead of the EU entity. Payment of salary to me by them implies that they are paying me as per my contract and therefore agree to the terms.

The fact they can't find a countersigned copy of the contract to me is their fault rather than mine as they should have it on file. I don't have the fully countersigned copy myself but I don't think I've ever been sent a countersigned copy of an employment contract by other companies I've worked for, they always hold these on file with the HR team.

Does anyone know if my assumptions about automatic transfer of contract are correct? Even if they are as a UK based person working for a US company remotely is there any way I can realistically challenge them on this legally?

Any advice would be most welcome.

Matt

keith969

If the company has no U.K. or EU entity then I don't see what you can do. Take the 30 day payment and put it down to experience...

lincroft1710

mattbr1973 wrote: »

they've just made me redundant by are not going to honour the 3 months PILON clause in my contract as they have said my contract is with a European entity that no longer exists, so they will only offer me 30 days as a payment. I wanted some advice on whether I might be able to challenge this in any way.

is there any way I can realistically challenge them on this legally?

Any advice would be most welcome.

Take the 30 days money.

Could you challenge it? Possibly

Could you realistically challenge it? Well if you have a thorough knowledge of US employment law, can afford to hire a US employment lawyer and can afford to make a couple of trips to USA and don't mind taking days off to deal with all this, then yes go ahead.

But if it were me in your position I would

Take the 30 days money

MoneySavingNovice

[FONT=&quot]Get legal advice on this one.....it a complex question which realistically a internet forum will not be able to answer.

Good luck with this[/FONT]

getmore4less

Where was the EU employer, they may have broken rules when they shut that down

steampowered

It is perfectly possible to sue a US company in the UK courts. In fact it is common.

As your employment was based in the UK, UK law will apply to your employment contract and the UK courts will have jurisdiction.

Nothing about this has anything to do with the US. The only situation in which you would need to involve the US courts would be if you needed to get bailiffs to seize the company's assets in the US (for example if they don't have any assets or businesses in the UK). If they are still doing business in the UK/EU the US simply isn't relevant.

If you believe you have a strong legal case, you can simply go ahead and sue this company through issuing a small claim. It is easy, cheap and quick to do this online through the "moneyclaimonline" system. All you need to have to use that system is an address at which they conduct business in the UK.

If the European company was dissolved, your employment would have transferred under TUPE to the company which continued operating the business. Presumably that means your employment contract transferred to the American entity. All of your rights, benefits and years of service would have transferred too.

One complication is that it doesn't sound like you actually have a copy of the contract? If you want to bring a court claim saying you have a 3 month notice period, and they defend the case, the court will of course expect to see a copy of the contract. If you don't have the contract you will need some other acceptable evidence demonstrating that you do actually have a 3 month notice period.