Uber v Aslam: implications for employment and tax tribunals

In October 2016 Uber drivers James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam were selected as test claimants by the Employment Tribunal (ET) from a pool of around 1 000 claimants who brought claims against Uber under section 230(1) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (ERA 1996) for:

1. the act of making unlawful deductions from wages (this was linked to minimum wage requirements); and

2. the failure to pay annual leave.

There were three Uber companies involved in the appeal – Uber BV and two UK subsidiaries Uber London Limited and Uber Britannia Limited – and in this article references are generally to ‘Uber’ to refer to all three companies.

The drivers considered that they were not in fact ‘self-employed’ as their contractual terms would appear to imply but that the relationship with Uber imposed sufficient controls over them and their work to constitute more...