British Telecommunications plc v Royal Mail Group Ltd [2010] EWHC 8 (QB), [2010] All ER (D) 10 (Jan)
Paragraphs 1 to 3 of Sch 2 to the British Telecommunications Act 1981, which dealt with the transfer of rights and liabilities under a contract of employment from the former Post Office to British Telecommunications plc, were to be read together.
They were a series of provisions showing how interests in property and rights and liabilities were to be attributed either to the claimant or to the Post Office in situations where the position might not have been obvious. The Act provided a default position for instances where both undertakings of the Post Office had an interest in relation to property, and that mechanism was contained in paras 1 and 2 of Sch 2.
That default position was the employees were transferred into the organisation in whose business they had been working on the day before the transfer. Further, s 33(2) of the Act clearly contemplated that rights that had existed under a contract that had come to an end were still capable of being transferred by the Act. Section
