Mr M Spore v Community Information Services Limited (in creditors’ voluntary liquidation) — 2022

Mr M Spore worked for Community Information Services Limited from 1 November 2004 until 30 June 2022 as a Graphics Studio Manager. The respondent went into creditors' voluntary liquidation on 13 September 2022. Neither party attended the hearing, so the tribunal decided the case on the written material provided by the claimant and the liquidators.

The tribunal found the claimant was entitled to 12 weeks' notice under section 86 ERA 1996, but he was given and paid only 2 weeks' notice. It therefore held there was a breach of contract and awarded damages for the remaining 10 weeks, calculated using his gross weekly pay of £576.92, producing £5,769.20. It also found he was dismissed by reason of redundancy and awarded a statutory redundancy payment of £9,707 using 17 years' service, age 41, and the statutory weekly cap of £571.

The protective award claim failed because the respondent was not proposing to dismiss 20 or more employees at one establishment within 90 days, so the section 188 TULR(C)A 1992 consultation duty did not arise. The tribunal also found unauthorised deductions from wages for holiday pay and overtime: £692.30 for 6 days of untaken holiday, and £269.70 for overtime worked. The overtime figure was derived from the liquidators' Statement of Affairs after the tribunal treated £675.45 of the preferential debt as holiday pay and allocated the remaining unsecured debt to notice pay, redundancy pay and overtime. The tribunal ordered payment within 14 days and noted the separate interest notice, but did not quantify interest in the judgment itself.