Group-action recovery for workers, contractors and pilots.

Aviation

Ryanair pilots — a High Court group claim

Most pilots who contact us ask the same question first: isn't this an employment case?

It is a fair question, and the answer matters. What we are bringing is not a claim about employment rights. It is a civil claim in the High Court about a commercial arrangement — how it was designed, who agreed to run it, and the financial harm it caused the people inside it.

The distinction is this. A tribunal case asks whether an individual was given what his status entitled him to. Our case asks something larger and earlier: whether several businesses together built and ran a structure that moved their costs and risks onto individual pilots, and what that has cost those pilots since.

Courts in the UK, Germany and Spain have already looked at how these arrangements actually worked and found that the paperwork did not match the reality. We rely on those findings as evidence of how the structure operated. They are not the claim itself.

The claim itself is about consequences. Pilots paid tax and social security they should never have faced. They funded companies and accountants to keep the arrangement running. They built up no pension and had no cover when they were ill. Some lost access to state benefits entirely; some were driven into borrowing or insolvency. Those are ordinary financial losses, and they are recoverable in the ordinary courts from whoever caused them.

That is why this claim sits in the High Court rather than a tribunal, and why it is brought by hundreds of pilots together rather than one at a time. The structure was built once and applied to everyone. It makes sense to challenge it once, on behalf of everyone.

If you flew for Ryanair through an agency or a personal company, the assessment takes a few minutes and tells you whether you are inside the group.

Umbrella Companies

Unlawful deductions from pay

Umbrella Companies routinely shave pay through deductions the law doesn't permit. The largest offenders — Employer NICs and the Apprenticeship Levy — must come out of the company's pocket, not yours.

Changes to the off-payroll working rules — both public-sector and private-sector — have pushed contractors into Umbrella Company structures, often against their will. Many find themselves facing misleading and unfair deductions: Employer National Insurance Contributions, Apprenticeship Levy, Workplace Pension Contributions, and Holiday Pay.

As a matter of law, employers (including Umbrella Companies) cannot deduct Employer NICs or Apprenticeship Levy from a worker's gross pay. Where they have, we recover those amounts.

If you have worked through an Umbrella Company at any point since 2017, your payslips may show deductions you are entitled to recover. Take the General Assessment — we'll tell you whether your numbers look right.

Workers' Rights

Holiday pay & pension rights

Workers misclassified as self-employed can recover holiday entitlement going back to 1998 — when the EU Working Time Directive was introduced — and pension contributions back to 2012.

Many organisations exploit workers by treating them as self-employed when in law they are workers — entitled to the same working conditions and basic pay as employees doing comparable work.

Following King v Sash Window Workshop Ltd, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) held that a worker — even one the employer incorrectly believes to be self-employed — must be allowed to accrue paid annual leave rights until the termination of the arrangement.

This right can stretch back to 1998 for holiday entitlement and to 2012 for workplace pension contributions. We are currently supporting thousands of claimants in active group actions against engagers who have failed to provide these basic rights.

Tax / HMRC

Loan Charge mitigation

We have identified an angle — with leading tax and employment QCs — to recover from agencies the tax suffered by contractors under the Loan Charge.

We have worked tirelessly to find a resolution for contractors and workers affected by the Loan Charge Legislation. Through challenges in the courts — Hoey (First-tier Tribunal and Upper Tribunal) and Finucane (Court of Session) — we don't profess to have defeated the Loan Charge, but we have identified another angle.

Sums earned by contractors via agency arrangements constitute earnings under s 62 ITEPA and are caught by the agency rules at s 44 ITEPA. The Agency is the deemed employer for PAYE purposes — meaning it should have deducted income tax and Class 1 NICs and accounted for them to HMRC.

Where the Agency failed to operate PAYE as required, the contractor or worker is entitled to claim for any loss suffered as a result of the loan charge due to the Agency's negligence. We pursue those agencies on the contractor's behalf — and also claim the holiday entitlement that should have been received but wasn't.