Ms Lindsey Richardson v Connells Group and 1 other — 2022

Ms Richardson was employed by Countrywide PLC from 21 September 2011 as Head of Compliance (Financial Services). After Connells Group acquired 100% of the shares in Countrywide PLC on 8 March 2021, she was told on 29 March 2021 that her role was at risk of redundancy, consulted on 31 March and 23 April 2021, appealed on 4 May 2021, and was dismissed on 30 April 2021. The dispute focused on whether her role was confined to financial services compliance or had widened to include broader branch oversight work.

The tribunal held that there was no relevant transfer under regulation 3(1)(a) TUPE because the business of the second respondent did not transfer in that sense, but there was a relevant transfer under regulation 3(1)(b) because the compliance activities carried out by the claimant and her team ceased to be carried out by the second respondent and were instead carried out by the first respondent. It found that the team was an organised grouping whose principal purpose was financial services compliance, that the transfer was not for a single short-term task, and that the second respondent had not complied with its regulation 13 information and consultation obligations.

On causation, the tribunal found that the principal reason for dismissal was the transfer and not an economic, technical or organisational reason entailing changes in the workforce. The unfair dismissal claim was therefore well founded on an automatic unfair dismissal basis under TUPE. The tribunal also found that, if TUPE obligations had been followed, the claimant would have remained employed for four weeks and would then have been fairly dismissed for redundancy in due course.

The tribunal cited the redundancy authorities in Williams v Compair Maxam, Iceland Frozen Foods and Polkey when assessing the fairness of the redundancy process. It held that the redundancy procedure followed by the respondents would have been within the range of conduct of a reasonable employer, but that finding only reduced compensation under Polkey to the four-week period it identified. A separate remedy hearing was listed for 21 February 2023, and this judgment did not record a final monetary award.