Employment tribunal jurisdiction

Crofts and others v Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd and others CA TLR 31 May

The Court of Appeal, by a 2:1 majority with the Master of the Rolls dissenting, held that an employment tribunal has the jurisdiction to determine unfair dismissal claims brought by international airline pilots employed by Hong Kong companies where their contracts of employment required them to be based in England. They are employed in Great Britain for the purposes of s94(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996. Similarly the tribunal had jurisdiction to hear contractual claims brought by those pilots in respect of their dismissals. The majority found it difficult to contemplate that a pilot who by virtue of his contract was found to be ordinarily working in Great Britain under the previous legislation, was, because of the repeal of s196 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, no longer employed here. The test had to be construed with sufficient flexibility to bring the employment of international airline pilots within the unfair dismissal provisions of the 1996 Act.