How Do You Decide If Expatriate Employees' Legal Rights Fall Under UK Or Foreign Law?

The recent legal case of Jeffery v The British Council shows employers how to decide whether expatriate employees' legal rights fall under British or overseas employment law. Helena Rozman of global law firm Dentons explains.

Employers that recruit staff in the UK, but employ them overseas are warned that their employees might be able to bring an employment tribunal claim in the UK.

The recent case of Jeffery v The British Council confirmed that if expatriate employees can show that they have a sufficiently strong connection to the UK, this might override the general understanding that the place of work determines which laws govern an employment relationship.

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The question whether or not expatriate employees can bring claims under UK employment law has been explored over the last 10 years.

The general rule, identified in Lawson v Serco Ltd, is that it is the place of an individual's employment that determines which laws apply to the employment relationship.

This is unless any of the following exceptions are present, in which case the individual is likely to be able to bring a claim in the UK:

the employee ordinarily works in the UK and was working in the UK at the time of the dismissal; a peripatetic employee's base was in the UK at the time of dismissal despite routinely moving between jurisdictions; an expatriate employee is working abroad for a UK employer within an extra-territorial political or social enclave, or has been posted abroad for a business purpose carried on in the UK; or the employee has an equally strong connection with the UK as the jurisdiction in which they work. Ravat v Halliburton Manufacturing and Services Ltd [2012] ICR 389 built on this and established that, if employees working abroad can show a "sufficiently strong" connection with the UK, then they may come within the scope of UK employment law.

Jeffery v The British Council

In the recent case of Jeffery v The British Council, the claimant was a UK-appointed employee of the British Council. He was working in Bangladesh, managing a teaching centre. When the claimant resigned from this role, he tried to bring claims against the British Council under UK legislation, namely the...