UK: England and Wales: fixed share partner was not employee of LLP

The ICLR, as part of its free case summary service, has provided a summary for the decision given last week by the Court of Appeal in Tiffin v Lester Aldridge LLP [2012] EWCA Civ 35: see here. The court held that a fixed share partner in a limited liability partnership was not an employee and in doing so considered the operation of Section 4(4) of the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000.  To quote the first paragraph of the summary:

Section 4(4) of the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000 required an assumption that the business of the limited liability partnership had been carried on by two or more of its members as partners and upon that assumption, required an inquiry as to whether or not the person whose status was in question would have been one of the partners. If the answer to that inquiry was that he would have been a partner then he could not have been an employee of the partnership; if the answer was that he would not have been a partner there would have to be further inquiry as to whether his relationship would have been that of an employee. It was implicit that the primary source material for the purpose of answering those questions would be the members’ agreement although that would not necessarily represent the totality of what might be looked at".