Working outside the UK

With closer ties developing between European states, more workers find themselves working outside the UK. Under the European Posting of Workers Directive 1996, which came into force in the UK at the end of 1999, all workers temporarily working in a EU state have the right to the same statutory minimum terms and conditions as those permanently working in that state.

Employment disputes are brought in the courts of the place where the employee habitually carries out their work, in accordance with the Brussels Convention.

In Weber v Universal Ogden Services ([2002] IRLR 365), the ECJ held that this is the state where the employee has worked the longest, except where the employee had worked in a number of states but had recently settled in one.

A ruling by the House of Lords (now Supreme Court) in January 2006 made it possible for some employees working outside Great Britain to bring claims of unfair dismissal in the UK. The Lords said that, although it is unusual for an employee who works abroad to come under UK law, there are exceptions, such as when an employee is posted abroad for a business carried on in Great Britain, or when someone is working in a British enclave in a foreign country. The basic test is whether the claimant’s connection with Great Britain is sufficiently strong for it to be said that parliament would have expected an employment tribunal to have responsibility for hearing the claim:

Although the Equality Act 2010 is silent as to territorial scope, in Clyde & Co LLP v Bates ([2012] EWCA Civ 1207), the Court of Appeal decided that the same “sufficiently strong connection” test, also applies to discrimination cases.