Buying and Selling Businesses – Changes to the Employment Rules

There is some good news for those buying and selling businesses – the Government is easing some aspects of the ‘TUPE’ employment protection legislation that applies on the transfer of a business although the Government is not going so far as some business campaigners had hoped. 

What is changing? 

The changes relate mainly to redundancies and altering employees’ terms and conditions.  

From 31 January 2014 it will be easier for in-coming employers to have a dialogue with the out-going employer’s staff about possible redundancies. Crucially, time spent by the new employer consulting with the old employer’s staff before the transfer takes effect will count towards the requirement  to consult employee representatives about redundancies – if the old employer agrees and all the safeguards are met. 

The law is also being altered so that it will be less risky in future to make staff redundant where the new employer wants to relocate the acquired operation.

The TUPE legislation is also triggered when there is a change in the contractor providing services as well as on a more conventional sale of a business.  Despite intense lobbying from some business representatives, a switch in service provider  (for example, on an out-sourcing or  re-tendering exercise) will still be covered by TUPE but only where the services provided are fundamentally the same post transfer, bringing the legislation in line with recent case law.                                     

The law is being amended in other ways, which are intended to widen the circumstances where in-coming employers can make changes to employees’ terms and conditions, including those derived from collective agreements. 

What will be the impact?

The headline change, facilitating in-coming employer consultation about redundancies before a transfer takes place, is likely to cut some of the risk associated with many transfers. 

However, the changes intended to make it easier to implement post-transfer changes to terms and conditions tread a sometimes tortuous path between reform and complying with overriding European Community law. As a result, there is likely to be substantial satellite litigation testing the new law. The changes, therefore, do little to reduce the need for in-coming and outgoing employers to rely, where they can, on warranties and indemnities to meet their business needs. 

Further advice

For further advice on the practical implications of the new TUPE law, please contact FWJ

Decision making – shareholder trumps director

It is fairly commonplace for a director to hold a dual role within a company, acting as director and/or shareholder, officer or representative of a shareholder. These roles should for the most part align with one another, however, if these dual interests come to conflict, the importance of reconciling the terms of any shareholders’ agreement with the company’s articles of association soon becomes paramount.

The recent case of Jackson v Dear and another [2012] EWHC 2060 (Ch) examines the position of parties to a shareholders’ agreement who are also directors of that same company and are accordingly subject to the usual fiduciary and directorial duties.

Facts

The case concerned three individual founders of a company who together owned a second company, which held all the voting shares in their founding company. The Claimant, being one of the founders, entered into a shareholders’ agreement with the other founders, which provided for (amongst other things) his appointment as director of both the founding company and the second company, terminable upon the occurrence of agreed termination events. The Articles, however, provided for the removal of a director by notice given by two or more other directors. This latter power was invoked by the 2 remaining founder Defendants on the premise that they viewed the Claimant to be unsuitable as a director and as such were fiducially required to remove him.

Essentially, the Defendant directors sought to remove the Claimant in their capacity as directors through the use of the company’s Articles thereby actively circumventing their commitment to the Claimant as parties to the shareholders’ agreement.

Decision

It was held by Justice Briggs that it was an implied term of the shareholders’ agreement that the Claimant would not be removed unless there was an event justifying termination under that agreement. Furthermore, the Claimant, as a contracting party, was entitled to assume that the other parties would not voluntarily render the agreement inoperative. Significantly, Justice Briggs went on to outline three alternative methods to avoid a breach of fiduciary duty on which the Defendants’ case so heavily relied, as follows:

1.      By making the second company sanction the breach of fiduciary duty in not removing an allegedly unfit director, or

2.      By the Defendants’ giving a direction to the board not to remove the Claimant under the Articles of the second company; or

3.      By amending the Articles of the founding company so as to disable the Article against the Claimant, save for a Termination Event occurring.

Conclusion

Crucially, in as much as this case essentially reconciles the current case law relating to implied terms and interpretation of contracts, it also acts as a caution to all directors who may be under the illusion that, by regarding themselves as two separate entities (being director and shareholder), they can advantageously rely upon a company’s Articles to circumvent onerous clauses within the shareholders’ agreement. It is instead the case that, unless there’s an effective carve out in the shareholders’ agreement; the contract principle that a party must do nothing of his own motion to render an agreement inoperative, will prevail.

For more information on the drafting or interpretation of shareholders’ agreements or any of above, please feel free to contact Partner Andy Wilks, 0207 841 0390.