From today 1 July 2015 employees will only be able to backdate claims for unlawful deductions from wages for a maximum of two years.
This change came about due to fears that a high number of claims may be made for backdated holiday pay trailing back for a number of years following the recent cases about what should be included in holiday pay. Cases have led to the need to include regular non-guaranteed overtime and commission in holiday pay calculations.
Furthermore for an employee to show a series of unlawful deductions over a two year period, there cannot be more than a three month break in the chain of underpayments.
So in the case of holiday pay, even if a claim was successful in asserting that this was underpaid, if there was more than three months between successive holiday dates / payments, the chain of events for backdating the pay would be broken and put a stop on how far back the claim could be backdated.