Irish person being sued in England by former employer- Help Needed

[Fearmor]

Hi - I came across this website and there is some great advice being given, so I was wondering if someone could assist me.

 

I worked for 10+ years as a sales agent/fitter for/with a large UK provider in Ireland. My contract made it clear that I am a contractor, rather than employee. I have always lived in Ireland and all work I did for this company was in Ireland. They recently terminated my contract, as they indicated that I owed them €3,000 in amounts collected which i had not paid up. Five others also had their contracts terminated for the same reason. I was happy to stop working with them as they were quite unprofessional in many ways, but I contested that I owed this amount, as they had agreed to pay me a higher level of commission and also agreed to pay me for a training session I gave. I may however, owe them €500. I wrote to them explaining this and providing evidence of my claim and asked for an agreement on installments for the €500, but received no response. (The €500 I owed, was used by me to pay the expenses (travel etc) involved in doing my job and would have been taken out of my next pay packet, this was standard practice).

 

Today I received a letter informing me that the matter is before an English Court. The company is seeking €3000 and I have 7 days to respond.

 

Can I contest this jurisdiction from Ireland. If so, how does one go about doing this. I do not have the money to pay for a solicitor in the UK, or for flights to the UK. It seems very unfair that I can be sued in a country that I do not live in and did not work in, just because the company I worked for have their principal office there.

 

Alternatively, should I just begin paying by installments the €500 I owe, but contest that I owe the rest in writting to the Court?

 

Any help and/or advice would be appreciated.

[cerberusalert]

Can I contest this jurisdiction from Ireland. If so, how does one go about doing this.

Yes, you are not a resident here.

 

Unless you actually receive court papers ignore their threats. If you do receive papers you have the option to dispute jurisdiction on the forms.

[unclebulgaria67]

Find out which UK court is dealing with it and then call the court to speak to someone about it. The clerk of court may be willing to assist if the correct protocols have not been followed. They should have sent the court claim papers to your Irish address, so you had a chance to defend. Normally a UK court claim can only be made against UK residents, but I think there is an agreement with Ireland, provided they follow the relevant UK court protocals.

 

This letter, if it is not from a UK court, may just be a load of nonsense. If you phone them and they don't tell you which UK court is dealing with it, make a note of the persons full name for future reference. When a UK court claim is made, the claimant has to provide an address for the court to send the court claim to be sent to. If you don't live in the UK, what address did they provide the court ?

 

See what you can find out first and post back.

[Fearmor]

Thanks for the replies, appreciate it.

 

I did get papers this morning from Nottingham County Court. The solicitor (for my former employer) has confirmed in them that I can be served in Ireland under the Civil Jurisdiction and Judgements Act, 1982. I had a look at this, but can't make sense of it.

 

A friend suggested to me that they may be relying on the agreement they entered with me when hiring me and a clause of it that says that English Courts have jurisdiction. I have only kept part of this agreement and so can't see if that clause is there.

 

If that is the case, am I better to defend it, rather than to challenge jurisdiction does anyone know?

 

I will try to ring the Court in the morning to see what advice they might give me. I tried calling the solicitor for my former company (listed on the papers), but she doesn't seem to want to take my calls. It seems unfair (i) that they did not show any of my correspondence refutting their claim to the Court and (ii) that someone who like me can't afford to get there is being sued in UK by a big company and won't get a proper chance to go into Court to explain myself.

[unclebulgaria67]

See what the court says. You don't have to attend the court or send someone. You may be able to apply to adjourn any hearing if you have not been allowed enough time to prepare a defence and you may be able to request a telephone hearing or perhaps submit a request for mediation. I am thinking that if it is just the amount that is in dispute then perhaps some form of mediation would be more appropriate.

[steampowered]

As the services were performed in Ireland, normally they would have to sue in Ireland. However, they can sue you in England if your contract has a jurisdiction clause saying they can sue in England.

 

Broadly speaking, Claimants normally need to get permission from the English court to serve an English claim form on somebody who does not live in the UK. However, where you have entered into an agreement providing that the English courts shall have jurisdiction, permission is not required. This is basically what Article 17/Schedule 1 of CJJA1982 says and is probably what the solicitor meant when he referred to that Act.

 

If the Claimant wishes to take advantage of this to serve a claim form without permission, it must also serve form N510 explaining why it does not need permission at the same time.Am I right to assume you have received a claim form and also a form N510?

 

Assuming you have received the claim form and N510, you have 21 days to return the Acknowledgement of Service else they will get default judgment. If you want to contest jurisdiction you return the AOS stating you contest jurisdiction and should file evidence (i.e. a witness statement) explaining why no jurisdiction within 14 days after filing the AOS. If you do not want to contest jurisdiction you should return the AOS stating you intend to defend the claim and follow up with a Defence.

 

For now the most sensible thing would be to ask the other side for a copy of your contract so that you can check whether there is a jurisdiction clause. State you have not seen any evidence to suggest that the English courts have jurisdiction, accordingly you require a copy of the contract to verify this, and if a copy is not forthcoming you intend to contest jurisdiction and seek a costs order.

 

You should not contest the merits at this stage (for example by telling the court you only owe 500). Once you contest the merits of the case you are deemed to accept jurisdiction.