EEA FP application rejection – ECO overlooked critical docum

[Hadata]

I am a Swiss citizen living and working in full time employment in the UK. I am on a long term international assignment, with the full support of my employer, a top tier US investment bank.

My wife, a Singaporean national who is living in France, applied for an EEA Family Permit via the TLS Contact center in Paris on 7th June. As my employer is covering the expenses, we engaged a specialist UK Immigration Solicitor to help us prepare the application. This took several months but it was extremely detailed and comprehensive, and included legal representations detailing exactly how my wife’s application met the letter of the relevant EU regulations.

Unfortunately, yesterday we received an email notification that the application had been refused, as apparently my wife had not provided evidence of my employment in the UK.

"On your application you state that your sponsor is employed by [COMPANY NAME]. However, you have provided no evidence that he is either employed by them or that he is in receipt of an income from them. Therefore I am not satisfied that he is a qualified person in accordance with regulation 6 of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations 2006 or residing in the United Kingdom in accordance with these Regulations."

This is completely false; we provided substantial amounts of documentation to support the application. It ran to around 250 pages, fully indexed and catalogued and in line with the categories in the legal representations from our solicitors. Unfortunately, TLS Contact then re-organised the documents as they saw fit, so it is possible something was missed in this process.

For evidence of my (sponsor’s) employment we provided, inter alia, my employment contract, UK assignment letter, a letter from my employer confirming my employment in the UK, my UK payslips and matching UK bank statements showing salary payments from UK employment.

Our solicitors are exceptionally surprised at the rejection given the comprehensiveness of the application. We can only imagine that somehow the ECO overlooked the documentation, or that due to the sheer volume it was not effectively transmitted from TLS Contact to UKVI.

The refusal letter mentions a right of appeal, but this seems needlessly complicated and prolonged given
this is a simple administrative oversight. It also says we can submit another application ‘if we can provide the necessary documentation’ (as we did the first time...), but I fear we would encounter the exact same issue again.

They didn't even say we provided inadequate proof, but none at all which is just wrong, and odd.

What options are available to me in this regard to get the matter solved in days, not weeks?

Thank you

[Hadata]

Anyone?