The British retailer Next has successfully overturned a landmark court ruling in an equal pay case at the Employment Appeal Tribunal on Monday, September 7, 2026. The ruling had forced the retailer to pay its shop staff the same higher basic wage rates as its warehouse workers under equal pay rules.
The big win comes two years after 3,540 shop workers of the UK retailer won a legal battle for equal wages. The UK retailer had challenged the ruling at the time. The Employment Appeal Tribunal ruled that Next's reason for the difference in pay was justifiable, overturning a landmark 2024 ruling that declared it was "not reasonably necessary" for the company to pay its warehouse staff more.
The judgement was made by Judge Bourne, who said, "Next paid the rates to warehouse staff which it needed to pay for sound business reasons, and no more, and those business reasons did not apply to the retail staff." The company owner, Simon Wolfson, after the ruling was made, said it had "won a landmark victory in its ongoing equal pay litigation."
It had succeeded in its appeal to the employment appeal tribunal "on the key issue of basic pay," the company stated. The plaintiffs, in their court filing, had accused Next of paying its retail sales staff, mostly female - lower hourly wages than its warehouse workers, most of whom are men.