Breda practises in Employment law and leads the Employment Law team at Hayes solicitors. She advises both employers and employees on all aspects of the employment relationship.
Breda is an accredited mediator with the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) and she is a Council member with the Irish Commercial Mediation Association. A Partner in a large law firm whose client engaged Breda as a mediator has described Breda as ‘sensational’, gave her top marks and highly recommended Breda to his legal team for future mediations.
Breda qualified with the Timoney Leadership Institute in 2018, follow a six month immersion course on ethical leadership in business. This course was presented by visiting Harvard professors who taught through the case study method on ethical dilemmas which business leader face.
Breda adopts a commercially pragmatic approach to dispute issues, avoiding litigation for her clients where appropriate, and using her skills as an accredited commercial mediator.
Breda is a prominent adviser in the area of the Transfer Regulations (TUPE), where she has advised employers outsourcing and changing service providers. Her previous legal practice in commercial law work strongly influences her pragmatic business focused approach to the clients she advises.
Breda acts for a broad spectrum of clients from multinational corporations and large public entities to indigenous Irish businesses, charities and private clients on the employer side. She also acts for C-suite executives in PLCs and multinationals.
Breda is praised by clients for ‘digging deep’ on their behalf, and going the extra mile.
Breda regularly gives workshops and seminars to professional and trade associations and client organisations on employment and commercial law issues.
This CJEU case relates to Portuguese law applying the Acquired Rights Directive (implementing the equivalent of our Transfer Regulations 2003). Local law in Portugal provided that a change of service provider does not give rise to a business transfer. We do not have this same provision in the Irish Regulations. This CJEU case held that a statutory provision of that nature is inconsistent with the Directive, and unenforceable as such.
The case related to a change from one security provider to another at a Port, where the employees were responsible for monitoring the entry and exit of people and goods, by means of video surveillance devices, wearing uniforms and radio equipment provided by their employer ICTS, in accordance with rules laid down by their employer.
On the changeover date, the outgoing employer’s employees handed over the radio equipment used by the employees at the Port, to an employee of the new incoming provider (Securitas), having been told by their employer to do so. The outgoing employer (ICTS) informed its employees that they would be transferred in their employment to the new incoming provider Securitas.
The new provider, Securitas began performing its security guard services, and it provided its newly hired security guards which it assigned to this contract with radio equipment, which Securitas itself owned. Securitas surrendered the ICTS radio equipment to the Port Authorities. It also provided its staff with identical uniforms. Securitas informed the employees that they were not part of its staff, and that ICTS remained their employer. This gave rise to the litigation that ensued.
The CJEU considered if there was a business transfer, where there was an economic entity which retained its identity. The CJEU held that the security activity at the Port is based essentially on equipment. It met the “asset-intensive” test, where ICTS transferred to Securitas, directly or indirectly, equipment or tangible or intangible assets for the purpose of carrying out security guard activities in the facilities in question. The Court indicated that the fact that the tangible assets essential to the performance of the activity belonged to the contracting entity, rather than the outgoing employer, cannot preclude the existence of a transfer of an undertaking. The CJEU also held that only the equipment that is actually used in order to provide the security guard services, excluding the facilities that are the subject of those services, must be taken into consideration, for the purpose of establishing the existence of a transfer of an entity, which retains its identity.
The Court held that there could be a business transfer, where the equipment essential to the performance of the services has been taken over by the incoming employer. CJEU held this could be a business transfer and referred back to the Courts in Portugal for a final analysis on the facts.
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=195740&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=287093
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