In King v The Sash Window Workshop Ltd, the ECJ had to consider how the EU Working Time Directive applied to a reference from the UK’s Court of Appeal about King’s case, where he had not taken or been paid for annual holiday from 1999 to 2012 because he had been wrongly categorised as self-employed, when in fact he was a ‘worker’. The ECJ ruled that EU law precludes a situation in which a worker has to take his leave before establishing whether he has the right to be paid for it. Where the right is denied, the worker can carry over and accumulate consecutive periods of unpaid leave until their employment ends and then be paid for all the periods of leave not taken, which in this case relates to 13 years’ worth of statutory entitlement. The case now returns to the CA to determine the position under the UK’s Working Time Regulations and King’s compensation.

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