Ms A Alves v & 37 others and 1 other — 2017

Monarch Holidays Limited went into administration on 2 October 2017. The joint administrators' report recorded 151 employees, of whom 94 were made redundant that day. The tribunal accepted that there were more than 20 employees at both the Bromley site and the Stockport call centre, and that each site was an establishment for section 188 purposes. The claims were brought in time with ACAS Early Conciliation certificates, and the administrators did not resist the proceedings, so the matter was determined on the papers.

The tribunal found that there had been no consultation at all about the proposed redundancies and no election or appointment of appropriate representatives. There was no recognised trade union and no pre-existing representative forum for this type of consultation. The tribunal accepted Mr Prewer's evidence about the communications to staff before administration and found that the possibility of redundancies had been present for some time, including over the preceding two years.

Applying the guidance in Susie Radin Ltd v GMB, the tribunal held that there were no mitigating circumstances justifying any reduction from the maximum protective period. It found no evidence that the company's financial position deteriorated so suddenly that consultation was impossible, and concluded that the workforce had been kept out of the loop. The tribunal therefore made a protective award for the maximum 90-day period from 2 October 2017.

The judgment records that the named claimants in the schedule are each entitled to a 90-day protective award against the First Respondent. If the First Respondent is insolvent, the Second Respondent must meet that liability subject to the statutory maximum under section 184 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. The judgment does not quantify a cash sum for the awards, so no single monetary total is stated.