Compensation

Your legal entitlement to compensation

If you win an equal pay claim you are entitled to receive:

• Back pay of up to 6 years.  This means you will be entitled to the difference between what you should have been paid and what you were actually paid.

• Interest on the back pay (less any tax and N.I. contributions that you would have paid).

• Additional back pay and interest from the period of lodging a claim and its resolution at Tribunal.

• Equal pay and benefits in the future.

Offers of compensation from your employer

If your employer writes to you and your colleagues with offers of money, saying that you may have been underpaid in the past, then you should take legal advice before signing any agreement.

Your employer is unlikely to be offering you your full entitlement and they will also ask you to sign an agreement which will stop you from ever bringing a pay related claim against them, and in some cases, several other types of claim may be included as well.  

This also means that if some of your colleagues do take a claim forward and win a larger amount of money than you had settled for, there will be nothing that you can do if you have signed an agreement.

Please contact Leigh Day & Co for free legal advice on 0800 037 4045 before accepting an offer from your employer.