The Claimant became an employee shareholder under s 205A Employment Rights Act 1996 ("ERA"), thereby excluding him from the statutory right to claim unfair dismissal or a redundancy payment. A later deed, executed between the Claimant and the Respondent, purported to supersede any previous agreement between the parties "in relation to the matters dealt with in it", but it did not contain any express or direct reference to the Claimant being an employee shareholder. When the Claimant was dismissed by the Respondent in circumstances that he regarded as unfair, he brought a claim for unfair dismissal, relying on the later deed as having terminated his employee shareholder status. The ET found that, since the later deed did not refer to employee shareholder status or to the subject matter of the s 205A agreement, these were not matters that could be seen as having been "superseded". The Claimant appealed, contending that the ET erred in its construction of s 205A ERA (in particular, in failing to hold that the requirements of this provision had to be met at the point of dismissal).

The EAT held that the ET had reached permissible findings as to the background context that entirely supported its construction of s 205A ERA within the later deed.