Don't take my answer as gospel, but I'd say .... yes, probably.
As I understand it, the identity of the person liable for fines is usually determined primarily by the person to whom the vehicle is registered. If you are driving a vehicle registered to the employer, then they'd be liable, and you wouldn't really have any grounds to appeal.
But, you're the driver.
So, they get either the fine, or the cost, hassle and time of running the appeal.
So I'd say the message they are sending is do not get fined. Don't do things that put them in that situation in the first place.
There is a potential problem in there, in that genuine mistakes do happen .... and so do problems due to car number plate cloning. But, presumably, if a fine was levied by an authority two hundred miles from where you were known the be operating, the company could and would challenge that.
Perhaps the answer is that if you genuinely object, they will fight it. And if they lose, they'll pass the increased cost of the higher penalty that will result from a failure of prompt payment, and their legal costs, onto you.
Every contract of employment I've ever had, where a company vehicle was involved, has had this provision. Even where the provision is generous, including one that paid ALL petrol costs, personal and business, and even allowed up to three other members of the family to be authorised to use the car, even for their personal business (and I haven't seen a set of provisions that generous for a very long time) they still passed on any fines, penalties, etc.
But you do have a choice. You drive round until you find a spot, or you lug the gear that much further.at least once per day, even today i had little choice in being 2 foot onto double yellows but had little choice other than drive round and round in the hope of getting close to lug a great box of pc equipment to the student digs.
That's the point of parking restrictions. They don't just apply to people for whom it isn't inconvenient or awkward, or apply to everybody except when it's inconvenient. They apply to all of us, period. As for the 2-foot thing, well, they have to ... literally .... draw the line somewhere. If the space isn't big enough, either don't park there or take a risk and pay the fine if you get caught.
My attitude has always been that I'm NOT prepared to pay parking fines, much less get speeding tickets, by breaking the law as part of the job. So, if I'm on a job where it's a 10 hour job on-site and the parking is two hours, every hour and fifty minutes I go and add more parking money to the meter, or if need be, move the car. And that takes as long as it takes. If it slows the job, so be it. If it adds to my overtime claim, so much the better.
And I pointed that out to one employer .... that it might be cheaper for them to pay the fine than the extra time costs, and the reply was very pointed ..... the extra overtime is a legitimate part of doing the job, and we'll pay it. Fines aren't, and we won't. If you get fined, you pay them, so don't get them.