Consultant coder was employee not PSC

In Sprint Electric Limited v Buyer’s Dream Limited & anor [2018] EWHC 1924 (Ch) the High Court held that a public service company (PSC) arrangement was actually an employer/employee relationship, meaning that ownership of copyright vested in the employer, not the individual or his company.

Dr Potamianos, a coder, was recruited by Sprint Electric Ltd in 1996. He worked for Sprint through a PSC, Buyer’s Dream Ltd, which was established by the coder. The parties entered into a contract for services and the coder became Sprint’s sole programmer. Under the arrangements, the PSC held the relevant source code and only supplied the related object code to Sprint.

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