Case 2602085/2023 · Employment Tribunal

Mr G Oakes v Renaissance Records Limited (in voluntary liquidation) — 2024

Case reference: 2602085/2023
Decision date: 10 September 2024
Jurisdiction: England & Wales
Judge: Employment Judge L Brown REPRESENTATION

Indexed: 17 May 2026

Parties

2 named

Claimant

Mr G Oakes

Respondent

Renaissance Records Limited (in voluntary liquidation)

Key findings

Tribunal's reasoning

Employment Judge L Brown sitting at Manchester (by CVP) on 7 August 2024 determined the claim in the Respondent's absence (the Respondent did not attend; the company is in voluntary liquidation). The tribunal found the complaints of breach of contract in relation to notice pay, holiday pay and wages all well-founded, calculated using gross pay, producing combined damages of £29,039.80. After credit of £3,360.14 received from the Secretary of State, £25,679.66 was due, but the tribunal applied the £25,000 statutory limit on Employment Tribunal breach of contract awards and ordered £25,000 payable for the breach of contract claims.

The complaint of unfair dismissal was also well-founded and the tribunal found there was a nil chance the Claimant would have been fairly dismissed in any event. A basic award of £1,929.00 was made (1.5 times gross weekly pay of £643.00 x 2). Compensatory components comprised past loss of earnings of £51,321.44, future loss of earnings of £11,397.30, loss of statutory rights of £500.00 and loss of pension of £3,000.00 (£2,100 past, £900 future), producing a sub-total of £68,147.74.

The tribunal found that the Respondent unreasonably failed to comply with the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures 2015 and applied a 25% uplift of £17,036.94 under s.207A Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, bringing the figure to £85,184.68. The statutory cap reduced the compensatory award to £80,000.00; the recoupment prescribed element was £1,915.72 (for the period 14 July 2023 to 7 August 2024), leaving £78,084.28 payable. The total of sums awarded set out in the judgment amounted to £105,013.28.

Claims and outcomes

7 findings recorded

Claim type	Issue or finding	Outcome	Protected characteristic	Award
Wrongful dismissal	Breach of contract for failure to pay notice pay (12 weeks x gross weekly pay of £1,534.25). Forms part of the combined breach of contract sums capped at £25,000.	Upheld	—	£18,411
Breach of contract	Failure to pay holiday pay in breach of contract (£307.69 gross daily pay for 12.5 days). Forms part of the combined breach of contract sums capped at £25,000.	Upheld	—	£3,846
Breach of contract	Failure to pay wages in breach of contract. Forms part of the combined breach of contract sums capped at £25,000. Total breach of contract sums amounted to £29,039.80; after credit of £3,360.14 received from the Secretary of State, £25,679.66 was due, but the tribunal applied the £25,000 statutory limit for breach of contract claims.	Upheld	—	£6,783
Unfair dismissal	Claimant unfairly dismissed; tribunal found a nil chance the Claimant would have been fairly dismissed in any event. Basic award £1,929.00; total compensatory award before cap £85,184.68 (including 25% ACAS uplift of £17,036.94 for unreasonable failure to comply with the ACAS Code under s.207A TULR(C)A 1992); compensatory award capped at the statutory £80,000. Recoupment prescribed element £1,915.72 (period 14 July 2023 to 7 August 2024).	Upheld	—	£80,000
Unlawful deduction from wages	Listed by gov.uk as part of the proceedings but the written judgment addresses the unpaid wages claim as a breach of contract claim rather than as a separate unlawful deduction from wages award. Outcome recorded as 'other' to reflect that the judgment does not adjudicate it as a standalone claim.

Remedy

Monetary award

Total award: £105,013; across all upheld claims
Basic award: £1,929; statutory, unfair dismissal
Compensatory award: £80,000; compensatory remedy recorded

Legal tests applied

3 references

Official outcome judgment PDF

Gov.uk primary record

The official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.

Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

How we got this data

Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.

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