Contract change is generally prohibited

Under regulation 4 of TUPE, changes to an employee’s terms and conditions as a result of a TUPE transfer (apart from changes to pensions) are generally void and unenforceable.

In particular, this means that any change to contract terms such as wages, overtime pay, holiday entitlements, notice periods, contractual (enhanced) redundancy terms or retirement dates will be void and unenforceable by the employer, if the reason for making the change is to bring the terms and conditions of the transferred workforce into line with those of the purchaser’s existing workforce (Foreningen af Arbejdsledere I Danmark v Daddy’s Dancehall A/S [1998] IRLR 315).

This practice, often described as harmonisation of contract terms, is contrary to the European Acquired Rights Directive and unlawful.