Mrs A Acquisto and 15 others (see schedule) v Magellan Robotech Ltd and 1 other — 2021

The tribunal was asked whether the respondents were under the collective consultation duty in section 188 TULRCA in respect of proposed redundancies at the Liverpool head office. The claimants argued that the two respondent companies, as part of the same group, should be treated together for the purposes of the 20-employee threshold, and Mr Armstrong also advanced an argument that all the claimants were employed by Magellan Robotech Ltd. The respondents accepted that, if section 188 applied, they had not carried out collective consultation.

The tribunal first determined which company employed each claimant at the relevant time. On the contractual documents, it found that Samuele Saccardi, Claudia Fiori, Elisa Chiamenti, Alberto Malfitano and Andrea Barlottini were employed by Stanleybet Services Ltd, while Lee Wallace-Piercy, Alan Palin, Bernado Gomez, Francesca Davis, Mark Lamen, Duncan Gkaidatzis, Gianfilippo Ingoglia, Zsolt Borsos, John Cadman and Callum Hough were employed by Magellan Robotech Ltd. In relation to Mrs Alessandra Acquisto, where no contract was produced, the tribunal relied on payslips and a pay review in the name of SSL and concluded that she was employed by SSL rather than MRL.

Having identified the employers, the tribunal found that SSL identified 16 employees at risk of redundancy, including six claimants, and MRL identified 19 employees at risk of redundancy, including ten claimants. It held that the section 188 duty only arises where one employer proposes to dismiss as redundant 20 or more employees at one establishment within 90 days or less, and that there were no provisions allowing associated employers or group companies to be aggregated for that purpose. The tribunal also relied on Akavan Erityisalojen Keskusliitto AEK ry v Fujitsu Siemens Computers Oy, holding that the duty to consult rests on the employing subsidiary even if a parent company has influenced or instructed the redundancy decision.

Because neither SSL nor MRL proposed 20 or more redundancies at the Liverpool establishment, the tribunal held that the duty to consult did not arise for either respondent. It therefore found that the claims for protective awards were not well founded and dismissed them all.