Recruitment agency to be prosecuted for trying to avoid giving its staff workplace pensions
09 August 2019
A recruitment agency and its managing director are to be prosecuted by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) on suspicion of trying to avoid providing their staff with a workplace pension.
Hertfordshire-based SKL Professional Recruitment Agency Ltd and managing director Linus (Lee) Kadzere are accused of wilfully failing to comply with their automatic enrolment duties under section 45 and 46 of the Pensions Act 2008.
Both defendants are also accused of falsely claiming they had enrolled 22 staff into a workplace pension scheme. Knowingly providing false information to TPR is an offence under section 80 of the Pensions Act 2004.
SKL, which is a specialist agency providing workers in the care sector and is based in Edinburgh Mews, Bushey, Hertfordshire, and Mr Kadzere, 54, have been summonsed to appear at Brighton Magistrates’ Court on 4 September 2019.
They will each face three charges of wilfully failing to comply with their automatic enrolment duties and one charge of knowingly or recklessly providing false and misleading information to TPR.
Both charges can be tried in a Crown Court or in a magistrates’ court. In a Crown Court the maximum sentence for each is two years’ imprisonment. In a magistrates’ court, the maximum sentence for each is an unlimited fine.