Members, Partners, Employees, Workers? Partnership Law and Employment Status revisited. Clyde & Co LLP v Bates van Winkelhof

Abstract

Abstract The recent Supreme Court decision in Clyde & Co v Bates van Winkelhof1 at first sight addresses no more than a rather technical point at the intersection of employment and partnership law, brought about as the result of questionable statutory drafting in section 4(4) of the Limited Liability Partnerships Act of 2004. Upon closer inspection, however, the case brings to the forefront a tension underpinning discussions of the personal scope of employment law, between an inclusive approach encompassing all relationships of employment or akin thereto, and the view that ‘private law’ or primarily commercial relationships should fall outside the scope of employment regulation. It will therefore have far-reaching implications for the employment status of partners in all forms of partnership arrangements, as explored in Section 2 of this note. The decision furthermore has the potential significantly to change our understanding of the interrelationship between the notions of employees and workers, by challenging a strand of previous decisions which seemed narrowly to interpret statutory extensions of employment status (Section 3). A brief third section, finally, explores the changing role of ECHR jurisprudence in UK employment law.