Check the TUPE: Facebook's hire of Bloomsbury AI founders wasn't 'traditional' acquisition - so sacked bod can't claim law was broken

A “very highly qualified and experienced expert in artificial intelligence” who founded a misinformation-fighting startup has lost a legal case against Facebook in London for unfair dismissal. Guillaume Bouchard lost his Employment Tribunal case after Employment Judge N Walker ruled that Facebook had “acqui-hired” key …

[Pascal Monett]

"each cofounder had been hired individually – and therefore TUPE didn’t apply"

Leave it to The Zuck to find a loophole in a legal employment protection scheme.

That being said, we're talking about a co-founder here. That's not exactly the bottom rung in the employment ladder, if I'm not mistaken.

Where you're at the top, you take your chances and look out for yourself. Running to the employment benefit larder when you feel you didn't get your fair share is rather pathetic.

[David Neil]

Re: "each cofounder had been hired individually – and therefore TUPE didn’t apply"

"Where you're at the top, you take your chances and look out for yourself. Running to the employment benefit larder when you feel you didn't get your fair share is rather pathetic."

He was fully entitled to bring the claim, the law is there for everyone

[jason_derp]

Re: "each cofounder had been hired individually – and therefore TUPE didn’t apply"

."...the law is there for everyone"

I agree with the sentiment, but it really isn't. It's mostly there for the rich. Though, since that's the case, the law really is there for this guy! Problem was it's also there for Facebook, and so, he wasn't rich enough to win. Oh well.

[tiggity]

Re: "each cofounder had been hired individually – and therefore TUPE didn’t apply"

Indeed.

If there is a legal loophole to be unfurled then that tends to trump any sense of moral justice (with most judges anyway). Look at the success of "Mr Loophole" in the motoring arena (I'm not a fan of people getting off lightly on drink driving motoring offences as drink driving is dangerous to other road users / pedestrians & needs proper punishment as a heavy vehicle at speed is very dangerous (do some simple kinetic energy sums))

Always worth a (slightly out of context Billy Bragg lyric)

"And the Judge said, "This isn't a court of justice, son. This is a court of law."

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "each cofounder had been hired individually – and therefore TUPE didn’t apply"

tiggity,

Once again the UK Employment laws are shown to be eminently 'gameable' !!! :(

It is not about who you are or what you earn/ed but about being treated fairly.

Co-founder or not was he treated fairly ?

No doubt the Employment laws will continue to be suitably vague and subject to legal opinion of more judges that are out of touch with reality, as we continue free of the 'guiding hand' of the ECJ and ever more subject to Cons/BJ's random ideas. !!!

[Heads you lose [ECJ], tails I win [Cons/BJ] or vice versa !!! :) ]

N.B.

To head off the obvious, there is *no* mention or reference to the dreaded B****T word !!!

:)

[Falmari]

Re: "each cofounder had been hired individually – and therefore TUPE didn’t apply"

Read the judgment linked in the article it is interesting reading.

To me Facebook were not gaming UK employment laws they employed the 3 founders one was not even an employee of Bloomsbury and some of the staff 3 were not employed.

Facebook did not buy the Bloomsbury or get any assets from Bloomsbury except the staff they hired. Neither did Facebook get Bloomsbury’s customers there were none.

Bouchard had less than two years at Facebook so not unfair dismissal.

Claiming TUPE is a bit rich when it was denied from 3 of Bloomsbury’s employees as the Co-founders wound the company up. Selling the company to Facebook would have resulted in TUPE and unfair dismissal for those employees.

Damn I need a shower now after taking Facebook's side. :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "each cofounder had been hired individually – and therefore TUPE didn’t apply"

It doesn't say much about his AI chops if he can't distinguish between "we want to hire you" and "we want to buy your company."

I assume he knew the difference and chose the option that would give him more money, which is fine. But doing some due diligence about what that means if it doesn't work out is always necessary.

[Howard Sway]

the case's judgment did not mention when Bouchard was sacked or why

Unfortunately, without the why, it's impossible to really see who's at fault here. There must have been some serious friction, as he wasn't a lowly minion, and he went over to FB HQ on a self promotion visit which resulted in him being employed by them. Did he benefit from the acquisition through share ownership? Or was he just a talented guy whose employer changed due to acquisition and he couldn't fit in with the corporate worship demanded by the big new boss?

Still, without information it's best to assume that he found that working for the cult of zuck sucked.

[Anonymous Coward]

Employment Tribunals - Rock and a Hard Place

Most stuff you read about employment tribunals is from the employer perspective.

This is from an employees perspective. It is a kind of practitioners guide, and it's about the law, so many people would find it a bit dry, but it does give some good history on how we got where we actually are and what can really be expected.

https://www.plutobooks.com/9781849646567/struck-out/

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source has no value?

If it had no value, they'd just throw it away. Publishing it means it DOES have value.