[5] The regulations' main aims are to ensure that, in connection with the transfer, employment is protected (i.e. substantially continued).

The directive and regulations apply to other forms of transfer, through the sale of physical assets and leases.

This protected contract terms for workers include hours of work, pay, length of service and so on, but pension entitlement is excluded.

The benefits to individual workers are clear; TUPE prevents the possibility of everybody in the firm losing their jobs, just because the company providing the service changes.

However, lawyers have highlighted problems with the operation of the New Zealand equivalent of TUPE and warned the government to be cautious in trying to exclude certain groups of employees.

Harmonisation of the terms and conditions between the two groups of employees is generally not possible as the "reason" for it would be the TUPE transfer which (except in limited circumstances) is specifically prohibited.

This could result in a situation where a transferring employee (whose old contract gave them an enhanced holiday entitlement) may be working alongside an existing employee of the new company (working under a contract of employment whose terms were set by the "new" company) who has less generous holiday rights.

These were enacted in the Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2014, SI 2014/16, also known as CRATUPEAR,[13] which came into force on 31 January 2014.