Ms C Guarino v International Currency Exchange Ltd Heard via Cloud Video Platform — 2021

Ms C Guarino was dismissed by International Currency Exchange Ltd by reason of redundancy following the closure of the St Pancras branch during the pandemic. The tribunal identified the issue as whether the respondent adopted fair redundancy selection criteria and whether it applied them fairly. It found that the criteria themselves were objective and measurable, and that the respondent was entitled to use the criteria it chose, including targets, average transaction value, sickness and disciplinary record.

The tribunal rejected the claimant's challenge to the criteria as such, including her argument about attendance and the use of sickness absence. It accepted that the respondent was entitled to use attendance as a criterion and that the claimant's attendance score would not have changed even if one absence had been disregarded. However, it held that the respondent did not apply the criteria fairly because of the way they were applied to KW, who had only a very short period of assessable work in the pool and whose results were treated as comparable with employees who had worked for the full year.

The tribunal found that KW's score, particularly for performance, was a significant outlier and that no sufficient enquiry was made into whether the short assessment period produced a fair result. It concluded that the use of 401 transactions and approximately three weeks of solo work, compared with the rest of the pool, was not a fair application of the selection criteria. Ms Guarino had been ranked 11th out of 19 and was the highest-ranked employee selected for redundancy, so moving up one place would have avoided dismissal. The tribunal therefore found the dismissal unfair. Remedy was not determined in this judgment and was adjourned to a later hearing listed for 12 April 2021.