The UK Government has finalised the amendments to the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (“TUPE”) and collective redundancy legislation, under the Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2014 (“TUPE 2014”). TUPE 2014 will be implemented on 31 January 2014 for transfers taking place on or, in some instances, after this date. The aim of 2014 is to simplify existing laws on TUPE transfers and collective redundancies and make it easier for employers to make organisational changes affecting employees or reduce the workforce. The key changes are summarised below.

Harmonisation of employment terms -

“New” employers will have greater scope to harmonise terms and conditions of transferring employees from “old” employers, if:

• the contracts themselves authorise the variation;

• or the sole or principal reason for the variation is for an “economical, technical and organisational reasons entailing changes to the workforce” (“ETO”) and the employee agrees to the variation; or...