Mr R Armour v Border Cars Group Ltd (in Administration) — 2020

Mr Armour gave evidence that he had worked for the respondent in Ayr for about four years. The respondent was in administration, no ET3 had been lodged, and there was no appearance or representation for the respondent. The tribunal therefore accepted the claimant's evidence as credible and reliable. It found that there was no recognised trade union, no elected employee representatives, and no individual consultation before redundancies were implemented.

The tribunal found that the claimant was made redundant on 16 July 2019 after receiving an email after working hours stating that he was redundant from 6pm that day. He had not been spoken to by his employer about consultation. The tribunal found that more than 20 but fewer than 100 employees were made redundant between 10 July 2019 and 23 July 2019, so consultation should have started at least 30 days before the first dismissal. That did not happen, and section 188 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 was not complied with.

In deciding remedy, the tribunal referred to Newage Transmission Ltd v TGWU & others, Susie Radin Ltd v GMB & others, and Clarks of Hove Ltd v Bakers' Union. It started from the 90-day period normally applied to a protective award, considered whether the default should be reduced, and found that there were no special circumstances justifying departure from that starting point. It also noted that a standard insolvency was not, by itself, a special circumstance.

A protective award was therefore made for the claimant for the protected period of 90 days, running from 16 July 2019 to 14 October 2019. The judgment does not set out a separate monetary figure for the award in the extracted text, only the 90-day remuneration period.