My Employer Hasn’t Paid My Employment Tribunal Award – What Can I do?

The first course of action is to write to your employer and ask them to make payment; remind them of the deadline set out in the judgment and set a final deadline for payment.

If this doesn’t prompt action, you may have no choice but to consider enforcement options.

When it comes to employment tribunal judgments, your enforcement options can be summarised into the following categories:

Employment Tribunal Fast Track Scheme

Employees who have not received their employment tribunal award have the option to make use of the employment tribunal fast track scheme. Essentially, the scheme assigns a High Court Enforcement Officer (HCEO) to the employee’s case, who takes steps to recover the debt on the employee’s behalf.

A summary of the steps are as follows:

1. Complete Form EX727 – send this to the Registry Trust Ltd.
2. Once received and processed, your case will be assigned to a HCEO.
3. The HCEO will apply for a writ of control on your behalf (note, there is a court fee payable to issue the writ of control).
4. Once the writ of control has been issued, the HCEO will have the authority to take goods from the respondent’s business and sell them to recover the debt.

The government have issued some guidance on the fast-track scheme, which may be helpful if you are considering this option.

Enforcing through the County Court

Unfortunately, the employment tribunal doesn’t have the power to force parties to comply with tribunal awards.

However, a party can enforce a tribunal judgment through the county court, through the following steps:

1. Filing a copy of the judgment along with the relevant application form (either Form N322A or N322B) with the county court.
2. The county court will then enter the tribunal judgment on the register of judgments.
3. Once on the register, the judgment can be enforced in the following ways:

• • Writ of control
  • Attachment of earnings order
  • Third party debt order
  • A charging order
  • Bankruptcy or insolvency

Government Penalty and Naming Scheme

The Government provides a free penalty scheme which can be utilised by employees who have unpaid tribunal judgments. Under the scheme, you can apply to have the employer fined and potentially named publicly for their failure to pay your award.

The employer will receive a warning notice, requesting that they make payment to you within 28 days. Failing which, enforcement officers have the ability to issue a financial penalty. The financial penalty is payable to the government and is usually 50% of the outstanding judgment amount subject to a minimum of £100 and maximum £5,000.

A summary of the steps are as follows:

1. Complete the Employment Tribunal penalty enforcement form. Please note, you can only apply once 42 days have passed since the judgment was made.
2. Send this to Employment Tribunals Financial Penalties – either by post or email.
3. Once your application is processed, a warning notice will be issued to the employer – this usually gives them 28 days to make payment.
4. If the award remains unpaid, the government will issue a financial penalty to the employer and the employer may be named publicly online.

It’s important to note that the above options are not only available for unpaid employment tribunal judgments – you can also make use of these options if you have a COT3 award following Acas settlement and your employer has failed to pay this sum.

How Can Ellis Jones Help?

If you require assistance in relation to an unpaid employment tribunal award or settlement agreement or any other employment law or HR matter, please do contact us on 01202 525333 or by email at employment@ellisjones.co.uk, one of our team would be very happy to assist you.