Any employer who does not fulfil the sponsor compliance duties as specified in the Sponsor licence guidelines and immigration rules, the Home office has complete ight to take strict actions against such organisations. In worst cases, the licence could get revoked or suspended with heavy penalties.
Understanding sponsor licence revocation
Many organisations get confuse so as to what does sponsor licence revoked mean?
It simply means that the organisation will lose its capacity and permission to hire and sponsor skilled overseas staff.
This could affect the businesses critically as the organisations heavily rely on overseas skilled workers for their work. It could pose a threat on organisations existence and operations abilities.
Reasons for sponsor licence getting revoked
Annexe C10.1 of the sponsor licence guidance talks at length about ‘mandatory grounds’ upon which your organisation could face sponsor licence revocation.
The Home office has clearly outlined the circumstances which could leav to you licence getting revoked.
The following reasons form the basis of sponsorship licence revocation
you terminate to have or never had a lawful trading presence
you no more meet the requirements of the workers route in which you are licensed
there is a severe or systematic breach of your sponsorship licence duties
you constitute a threat to immigration control
you have been convicted of a specific criminal offence or issued with a specified civil penalty
you are engaging or having engaged in behaviour or actions that are not favourable to the public good
Effects of sponsor licence revocation
Once your licence gets revoked, it will be revoked in all the routes in which you are licensed and sponsoring skilled overseas staff. You will not be able to sponsor any more workers and the permission of any workers you are sponsoring will immediately terminate.
Your organisation’s details will get removed from the public register for Worker and Temporary Worker sponsors.
The organisations generally receive a letter from the Home Office, as a prior information to apprise you that your organisation’s licence is getting revoked.
Once the licence revocation has taken place, you will lose all the rights to appeal against the decision and you will not be eligible to reapply for a sponsor licence until at least 12 months (cooling-off period) have passed since the date of revocation.
In some case, this 12 months could get prolonged.
Impact of sponsor licence revocation on worker’s visa
When the sponsor licence gets revoked, it implies that the sponsored workers working with the employer will also be impacted.
Once the revocation is enforced by the Home Office, the overseas skilled staff needs to depart from the UK within 60 days by calender. They can also identify a new licenced employer to gain employment. They must submit a fresh visa application to work under the new sponsorship licenced employer.
Since the date of revocation, any pending skilled worker or temporary workers visa application stands invalid under the law.
In such a case, the workers will not have to adhere to 60 days rule to leave and reapply.
What are my chances for appeal after sponsor licence revocation
Generally speaking, once the revocationhas been enforced on any employers sponsorship licence, there are no further chances of appeal. However, under extraordinary circumstances one can appeal for Judicial review but needs a legal assistance to proceed any further.
Take legal advice
Getting a Sponsor licence comes with a long list of heavy compliance duties and responsibilities as a licenced organisation. It would be best if you take legal advice from the best immigration lawyers to handhold you at every stage of compliance and applications.
A Y & J Solicitors have been advising their clients on sponsor licence applications for over 10 years now. Their expert approach helps you to secure sponsor licence successfully.
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