Case 3313418/2020 · Employment Tribunal
Claimant v Blitz Communications Ltd (In Liquidation) and Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy — 2022
- Case reference
- 3313418/2020
- Decision date
- 2 November 2022
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Foxwell Date
Parties
2 namedKey findings
Tribunal's reasoningThis was a judgment by consent in a collective redundancy case involving Blitz Communications Limited (in liquidation). The parties agreed that no trade union was recognised for collective bargaining under section 178 TULR(C)A, that Blitz proposed to dismiss 20 or more employees at the listed sites within a period of 90 days or less, and that the sites were treated collectively as one establishment for the purposes of the claims. They also agreed that Blitz was under a duty to consult representative employees under section 188 TULR(C)A, but consultation did not begin at least 30 days before the first dismissals took effect on 17 August 2020 and the election requirements in section 188A were not complied with.
On that agreed basis, the tribunal declared the protective award complaints well founded and made a protective award under section 190 TULR(C)A. The award was 56 days' gross pay, described as 8 weeks' gross pay, for each claimant listed in Schedule 2. The protected period was fixed as beginning on 17 August 2020. The award applied only to the Schedule 2 claimants.
All other claims against Blitz Communications were dismissed upon withdrawal, including unfair dismissal, redundancy payment, notice pay, holiday pay, arrears of pay, breach of contract and other payments. All claims against the Secretary of State were also dismissed upon withdrawal. The tribunal made no order for costs.
Claims and outcomes
6 findings recordedThis case has mixed outcomes under at least one legal claim type. A tribunal can uphold some allegations and dismiss others under the same legal head, so rows below may represent separate issues or allegation groups from the judgment.
| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other | Protective award under sections 188 to 190 TULR(C)A; the parties agreed the complaints were well founded and the award was 56 days' gross pay (8 weeks) for each claimant listed in Schedule 2. | Settled | — | — |
| Unfair dismissal | Dismissed upon withdrawal. | Withdrawn | — | — |
| Redundancy | Dismissed upon withdrawal. | Withdrawn | — | — |
| Holiday pay | Dismissed upon withdrawal. | Withdrawn | — | — |
| Breach of contract | Dismissed upon withdrawal. | Withdrawn | — | — |
| Other | Notice pay, arrears of pay and other payments were dismissed upon withdrawal. | Withdrawn | — | — |
Legal tests applied
8 references- section 178 TULR(C)A
- section 188 TULR(C)A
- section 188A TULR(C)A
- section 189(1)(a) TULR(C)A
- section 189(2) TULR(C)A
- section 189(3) TULR(C)A
- section 189(4) TULR(C)A
- section 190 TULR(C)A
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe 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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