Background

An employee filed a complaint against a company before the Labour Department requesting that the company pay his salaries. The department referred the dispute to court.

The court ruled that the company pay the employee GBP £18631.384.

The company appealed and the appeal court upheld the ruling.

The company appealed by cassation.

Decision

Before the cassation court the company argued that the ruling had violated the law as it had maintained before the court that the court should not consider the case as the employee had filed his complaint before the Labour Department after one year from the termination date of the contract but the court had ignored this defence.

The court held that this argument was valid as Article 96 of the Kuwait Labour Law, Kuwait Law No. 38/1964 stipulated that the introduction of a complaint to the Labour Department is the first procedure the employee should take to claim his rights.

The court therefore repealed the ruling.