Is this immigration fraud?

[legalq]

Appologies, I originally posted this in the general discussion forum, but can't move or close it myself

Hi

I'm new to the forum, I know some of these questions have probably been answered in other posts, some of which I have read through, but I would appreciate your opinions on this:

1) If a company employs someone for position A(Tier 2), which is quite Junior and successfully applies for a work permit, would they need to apply for permission from the home office before promoting this employee to position B which is more senior? Do they need to do another Tier 2 recruitment search?

2) What are the consequences if this was never done and found out by say the company's HR department 3 years later? Is there any way to remedy this and keep the person in the country legally?

3) What would happen if after 3 years the person has actually been promoted 3 or 4 times in the same manner, internally, no recruitment search, but is now employed at board level which would qualify as a Tier 1 position(position F)?

4) Lets assume after some inquiries the home office found that the same scenario applies to about 10 individuals employed at the company, with more senior roles, not necessarily board level posts. Can this still be fixed legally for all involved?

5) Could the company claim that the previous HR administrator did not know the immigration rules as they used an agent to apply for the work permit? Would this be seen as a valid excuse?

6) The problems above are also compounded by the fact that technical changes to employment were never reported to the home office.

7) Would the situation above affect person 2's chances of getting a work permit approved if the evidence above comes to light while a work permit application for person 2 is being assessed? (Nothing dubious about person 2's application)

8) Person 3 started working for the same company a year after person 1 and is also employed on a work permit. Person 3 has not changed roles, and worked in the same position that was applied for. Would any of the above affect his leave to remain?

9) Would salary changes for the 10 people mentioned in point (4) need to have been mentioned to the home office at any stage?

10) Just to add fuel to the fire, would the fact that the company's solicitor asked for modifications to the job specifications to match the employee's skillsets before submitting them to the home office have any effect on this situation?

11) Has anyone ever heard of any real world cases like this? What were the outcomes?

12) What kind of legal assistance would you suggest?

13) Would the above scenario affect the company's ability to get future work permits approved if all the issues do get resolved legally?