Claimant v Signs and Screens Ltd and Stackd Media Ltd — 2020

The tribunal found that Mr Dmytro Krasnevskyy, Mr Janusz Sekowski and Mr Valentin Ungureanu each had sufficient qualifying employment to recover redundancy payments. The issue was whether they had lost that entitlement by unreasonably refusing an offer of suitable alternative employment. The tribunal held that only discussions had taken place before the end of employment; no offer was made before 21 December 2018, and the offer came after employment had ended. On that basis, s.138(1) and s.141(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 did not prevent the redundancy payments, and each of those three claimants succeeded on the redundancy claim.

The tribunal also found that the respondents were, for present purposes, the same legal entity: Signs and Screens Limited changed its name to Stackd Media Limited on 27 December 2018, and the second respondent had not existed as a separate legal person. The successful claimants were employed again from 7 January 2019 for seven days on terms said to be equivalent to their previous roles, with one week notice from either side. The factory then closed again on 14 January 2019, the claimants were dismissed, and they were not paid notice pay or for the work they had done during that week.

On remedy, the tribunal awarded Mr Krasnevskyy £960 redundancy pay, £480 notice pay and £384 unpaid wages; Mr Sekowski £1,524 redundancy pay, £520 notice pay and £494 unpaid wages; and Mr Ungureanu £960 redundancy pay, £480 notice pay and £480 unpaid wages. The unpaid wages figures were described as gross amounts, with the note that payment of the net amount would meet the judgment debt if the respondent paid the tax and national insurance due to HMRC. The fourth claimant, Mr Ned Guojah, had his claims for redundancy payment, unpaid wages and notice pay dismissed because he failed to comply with the tribunal's order of 29 October 2019 and produced no evidence of entitlement.