The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has confirmed that claims by employees for unlawful deductions or underpayment must be made within three months or they would be time-barred.

The ruling was made in the long running case involving employees who claimed that their employer, Bear Scotland Ltd, had made unlawful deductions from their wages because overtime and other payments had not been included when calculating their holiday pay.

The Employment Tribunal in the initial hearing found in their favour saying the unauthorised deductions had been made.

The issue then arose as to whether some of their claims were time barred, where there had been a series of unlawful deductions but where a period of more than three months had elapsed between those deductions.

The EAT has now confirmed that all claims would be time-barred if "a period of more than three months had elapsed between successive non or underpayments of holiday pay".

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