What restriction is there on an employer inserting a break of one week between contracts into a succession of fixed-term employment contracts in order to avoid the employee gaining a permanent contract?

The Fixed-Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2002 (FTE Regulations 2002), SI 2002/2034 contain a mechanism, derived from the Fixed-term Work Framework Directive, for converting successive fixed-term contracts into permanent contracts in certain situations.

The way the FTE Regulations 2002 achieve this is to state that the provision of any employment contract that restricts the contract's duration shall be of no effect, and the employee employed under it shall be a regarded in law as a permanent employee, where the following conditions are all satisfied:

1. •

   the employee is employed under a contract that purports to be a fixed-term contract

2. •

   either:

   1. ◦

      that purported fixed-term contract has been renewed (or extended) one or more times, or

   2. ◦

      the employee has previously been employed on a fixed-term contract before the start of that purported fixed-term contract

3. •

   the employee has been continuously employed (to be determined